Sol
by willowsandgables
Summary: The sun is dying. The only way to save it is a bomb of Rowen's design, and the wits of the eight crew members traveling to the sun to pull it off. They are Earth's last hope for survival. An accident and a distress beacon from a long dead ship prevent them from going home. Will they make it back to Earth alive? Sci-fi AU based off of the movie Sunshine. Ronins In Space!
1. Prologue

**HASHIBA/PERSONAL LOG**

Once upon a few months ago, I would have dated this entry. However, I'm having difficulty remembering the exact day, and frankly I don't care enough to ask someone for the actual date. As I have not for the past month or so of entries. It's May. Sufficient enough.

Sometimes I wake up with the feeling – no – the certainty that the date won't matter. No one on Earth will read this. Therefore, it seems quite unnecessary. I understand where Sage is coming from with this exercise. The daily routine, key word _routine_ (he loves that word), the ritual of writing personal thoughts in a journal to inject a certain sense of normalcy and mental unloading to help ease the passage of time on this ship.

Doesn't matter. I'm still caught in the crosshairs of boredom and a madness borne from the heavy load we carry, literally and figuratively. I believe our minds are slowly deteriorating in here and we don't even realize it. Or my mind, at least. Not just from the claustrophobic atmosphere - narrow hallways, narrow beds in small, compartmentalized rooms, the ever pressing weight of empty space all around us, emptiness and nothing more for millions of miles.

I like to point that out to Kento sometimes and watch him pale like someone scribbled on his face with chalk. Mean-spirited? Yes. Amusing? Absolutely. This is what he gets for poking fun, relentlessly, at my leaner physique for the better part of a year. I think he still fails to realize that I have nothing but time to come up with ways to get back at him for his juvenile attempts at razzing me.

I am a genius, after all.

But I digress.

Our mental deterioration - not just from claustrophobia. Familiarity. Sharing the same enclosed environment with seven other people for sixteen months, essentially marooned on a deserted island made of plated gold, cold metal, and steel piping. Fortunately, our resident shrink has worked hard to keep us from going completely insane, but I don't think Sage realizes by doing so, he's directing all the frustration and edginess of everyone on board onto himself. Or maybe that's just me. If he does, he doesn't care. I have a hard time figuring out what he does care about, other than the mission and the sun. And the engine room.

Hmm.

He's also sporting quite the golden tan these days from staring at the sun so much, when he's not psych evaluating us. Honestly, with all the time Sage spends checking on our mental states, who's checking up on him?

So.

Mission.

I suppose this is the quintessence of what he really wanted us to write about. The real fat white elephant everyone's carefully tiptoeing around so as not to disturb any fragile psyches over the nature and ultimate magnitude of our mission. He insists writing about it will help.

Bullshit. We both know the truth. I'm sure venting on paper will relieve some of the pressure for a little while, ease the constant gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach that's been growing as we get closer. Only relief for a moment, in an endless stream of them; I can't shut my mind off any more than anyone else here. One hour of reprieve from the reality of our situation seems trivial compared to the countless hours in this confined space.

There's this grassy knoll (addendum: was a grassy knoll, before Solar Winter. Now it's buried under mounds of snow. Summer hasn't come to Japan in sixteen years. I've looked at the stars, and one in particular, from inside observatories and universities around the world since then) a few miles from my apartment back home (I write 'home' as if I'm on another continent instead of almost two planets away) large and far enough from the oppressive lights of the city where I used to set up my telescope and look at the stars and identify the constellations. Perhaps see Mars or Jupiter, if the timing was right. It never failed to remind me how insignificant our little planet really is, how vastly gargantuan the universe around us is. How small I am compared to the celestial entities I have been mesmerized by nearly all my life.

I have always been fascinated with outer space. It's a vast, quiet, cold beauty. Capable of creating endless prisms of color with its gasses, planetary bodies, stars, and galaxies we will never be able to replicate on earth, not to do it justice. What we know of the universe could barely fill a thimble. Nothing brought that particular point home more than the happenstance which brought us to this ship.

As a teenager, I would have told you I'd love this. Being in space. The sheer wonder of it. The culmination of all my hopes and dreams.

But not like this.

I feel cheated. Here is your life's greatest aspiration, everything you have ever wanted, but here is the price: Your life. And the lives of people you love.

Even knowing this particular occurrence was through no human error or fault, I'm still pissed.

We, as the human race, have thoroughly adapted an instant gratification mentality, incapable as a whole of looking forward and planning ahead for pesky things like the eventual depletion of our natural resources, burning every last drop of our fossil fuels, substituting our finite resources for less harmful, technological advancements. It has always fallen back on whatever works today and we'll worry about the consequences tomorrow. I put myself in that category, as well. We're a wasteful, selfish species, and it's hard not to feel as if we've somehow brought this upon ourselves.

Everything we have; every shred of what fissile resources were left that we could spare and not kill the planet in the process, is strapped on this ship with us.

And there is a small chance it might not be enough to save us. No one knows that better than me.

I'm responsible for it, after all.

No one saw this coming. As brilliant as everyone considers me to be, I would have laughed in your face had you told me this. Theoretically –

No. Not theoretical. Fact. Factual. This was not supposed to happen for close to five billion years. Give or take a few million, whatever, but it wouldn't affect anyone for a damn long while, and the only creatures I reckon would be there to witness it would be the cockroaches. I would assume in five billion years, we would either be extinct or we would have moved on to other planets to continue the song and dance of sucking up its natural resources after drying this one up.

I never anticipated the 'extinct' part so close within our grasp, so soon. Even now, I catch myself wondering at the very idea of it. This happens in other galaxies, millions of light years away, something to study, learn from, marvel at. A dying star.

Our star is dying.

Our sole infinite resource is fading. The sun is, thank you, Elton John, going down on me. On us.

Not in the conventional way, of course. An ancient particle – Big Bang ancient - that the greatest minds on Earth only ever theorized existed found its way to our star and drifted in. Disrupted its ability to convert hydrogen into helium (no matter how many times I write this, it still staggers me). That particle nestled inside the sun for sixteen years, eating away at the star's insides.

Like a cancer.

But there are treatments for cancer. And therein lays the hope.

We are the hope.

The eight of us on this flight. Of the four billion people left on the planet, eight of us were handpicked to deliver this precious package. The most important pay load in the history of mankind.

A bomb I helped create. One that is, theoretically, supposed to blow the particle out of the sun and help it function again

We were entrusted with its delivery, and now the fate of those four billion people rides on the success of this mission. If we fail, everyone dies.

Failure is not an option.

Rowen H.

May (?) 2057


	2. Xibalba

_Author's Note: Welcome to Sol! Let me tell you a little bit about this AU venture. This story is heavily based on the plotline of the sci-fi film Sunshine. It's a very intimate look at the psychological aspects of space travel, but it also manages to dive into the realm of horror. It's beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, and Danny Boyle consulted a physicist from CERN to get as scientifically close as he could to the truth. Naturally, he stretches that a bit, as do I in this story (The Dead Zone is not a real thing, but I will use it as Boyle did because it ramps up the isolation factor). As I watched the movie, I could not help but draw parallels between some of the characters and the Ronins, and wonder "…what would the boys do in this situation?" Thus Sol was born._

_If you've seen the movie, you'll notice that I take some lines directly from the film on occasion— that is apparent in one particular scene in this chapter. I kept it because that character and that scene is so spot on for Sage, and there was little reason to change what sparse dialogue he has. Any other time I do use dialogue from the film, it's because they're talking about things concerning the ship or the science that is explained better in the film then I could do on my own. So it's not a crossover, but rather the movie Sunshine with the Ronins replaced as the characters, with a twist. If you think it's going to end the same way or go in the same direction near the end, __**boy howdy**__ you are mistaken. I wouldn't want you guessing how it ends!_

_No armors in this fic: Everyone on board is power free. They're all in their early 30's. Their super powers are their giant brains. Everyone on board is a heavy hitter in their field and totally qualified to be there. There are OCs—I needed a crew of eight, and I had two slots open—so I am borrowing Robyn, Ghost of the Dawn's OC (with her permission, thank you darling), and the OC Regan is mine. Regan can also be found in Urban Legends. I needed some ladies to offset all that testosterone. _

_Special thanks and consideration goes to Ghost of the Dawn – she is the main reason why I even started writing this story again. She has been my cheerleader, sounding board, and muse, and I want to thank her a thousand times for her input and advice. It would not be what it is now without you. You created this monster, Ghost—enjoy._

_Welcome aboard Inferno._

Chapter 1

Soundless in the cold depths of space mankind's last hope traveled; a leviathan containing the last scrapings of Earth's fissile resources.

The majority of the craft was comprised of a massive, dome-like shield where thousands of gold-plated panels tilted and reflected off sunlight as it loomed ever closer to its destination. A golden umbrella protectively encasing its vital contents from certain destruction caused by the extreme heat forever sizzling off the shields. It not only protected the precious package nestled inside the heart of the shield, it gave the only occupants of the craft a safe place to live for the long, long journey to the heart of a star. The living quarters stretched like a long, metal tail underneath the umbrella, littered with equipment and windows glowing brilliantly with light. At the tail end of the smaller living quarters, two communications towers spun lazily, tiny chopsticks in comparison to a shield one thousand times their size. If one had a view of the craft from behind, the entity itself would look Lilliputian compared to its destination: a small, dark blip on a map of golden fire.

From a view such as that, it would be hard to tell there was anything wrong with the sun.

Hard to see the sickness eating away at its insides.

Captain Ryo Sanada wasn't fooled.

He had no view of their destination from his small living quarters, but it loomed as large in his mind as the behemoth it was, boring down on the tiny ship sailing up to its fiery presence. As it had for almost half of his life.

The sun began to die when he was seventeen. International space programs and worldwide leaders had tried desperately to avoid widespread panic when space station reports came back with strange readings from the star. Something disrupting its conversion ability. They'd never seen anything like it. A space probe to the sun confirmed the existence of a massive, ancient particle that Rowen called a Q-Ball: some colossal floating virus that lodged itself in the sun and infected its ability to create the sunlight they so desperately needed. The consequences of such a disruption would be enormous and devastating for the entire planet. Ryo had, coincidentally, been in environmental biology class when the news report came in and the Japanese prime minister made an official statement. Every classroom in the building watched it. And every science class he took thereafter devolved into discussions about What Now: What was going to happen to the environment? How could they fix it? _Could_ it be fixed?

He knew the answer to the first question. Earth began a slow freeze that only grew worse over the years. The time before Solar Winter felt like a distant dream, and the years since contained worldwide hardships that were hard to watch from afar. Those areas with already harsh winters and temperatures made more extreme saw mass exoduses of people attempting to leave for what warmer climates were left. Some governments didn't handle it well. Civil wars broke out; a world war was narrowly avoided when he was twenty-one. He'd enlisted because he was desperate to do _something_ to help. Ryo knew in his heart he had to help fix the problem to stop the suffering—even if it meant dedicating his whole life to the cause. He was one of the lucky ones who turned on that path early—much of what others in the world had to deal with didn't touch him, as those who entered the space programs were groomed and cultivated to be the utmost assets when it came to finding a solution. He witnessed his fair share, though, in his service years, before he took the leadership skills he developed and turned to space.

They discovered the answer to the second question almost ten years ago.

The only way to drive out the Q-Ball particle was to force it out with an explosion: thus the creation of the world's largest bomb began. A spacecraft was designed to withstand the sun's still fiery glory; a team was handpicked by the two largest space programs in the world to deliver the bomb and see if it was enough to dislodge the particle and reignite the sun.

Ryo had not been a part of that team.

Because the first team failed.

His crew was not the first unprecedented mission to attempt an approach to the sun. But they would be the first to reach it and complete the mission, if he had anything to say about it.

The doomed first attempt to drive out the thing infecting their star weighed as heavily on Ryo's mind as the star did, if not more so. Years before they ever left earth, before he was even chosen as the one to captain Inferno, he puzzled over the failure of the first team. It wasn't even an issue of the bomb not working: it was never delivered. He didn't know what he hoped to find out about it that had not been analyzed and discussed to death by renowned scientists and philosophers the world over during the seven years of silence after Hariel's failure to complete the mission or return. Yet a need to _understand_ gripped him anew when he was chosen to lead the mission that was Earth's last hope to save humankind from certain extinction.

There would be no other attempts. It had been difficult enough to replicate the bomb a second time to make up for the one that was never launched. The one that now drifted in space on a craft that hung suspended so achingly close to the sun. The high powered telescopes of Earth and the space stations could see the first spacecraft out there: motionless. Unresponsive.

A sunken ship in a sea of stars.

Ryo did not want to repeat whatever mistakes had been made the first time around. The possibilities—all the many ways a spacecraft or a team could fail—were numerous and terrifying to his meticulous mind. Reports, now filed away on the tablet in his hand, pointed to any number of mechanical issues in Hariel itself. Mechanical or electrical failures; oxygen depletion; destroyed sun shield; a deadly solar flare.

Eighteen months after Hariel's crew left Earth, and after the ship's communications went down, Earth never heard from Hariel again.

Inferno was sixteen months into the mission. Not only were they approaching the Dead Zone, but Inferno would have to pass within visible distance of Hariel to complete the mission.

The certainty of passing by the Hariel spacecraft wound Ryo up like a tightly sprung coil, but he made sure none of the crew members knew it. Or tried, at any rate: they were keenly attuned to him, and he wasn't sure if he was deluding himself into thinking they hadn't noticed his behavioral changes over the past month. He'd taken to hiding away in his bunk and poring over documentation of Hariel's last few weeks. He had another theory concerning their failure, and he wanted to explore it in solitude. Best not to place more stress on the crew.

A light touch on his side startled Ryo from his fixated thoughts. He looked down and found a pair of tiger blue eyes, so like his own, staring up at him.

"Hey, buddy," he said softly. He stroked the white and black cat and scratched lightly at his tail. White Blaze arched and purred, rubbing his face and the white slash on his forehead against Ryo's forearm. Ryo stretched, too, unaware that he had been holding himself so stiffly. He rolled his shoulders, tilted his neck, and felt his back pop.

The captain consulted the tablet in his hand and absently pet White Blaze, scrolling through to find the video logs of Hariel's captain, Anubis. He chose the last one uploaded before Hariel went silent.

Hariel's captain appeared on the screen, his face settled into relaxed lines, even happy ones. Long, deep red hair was pulled back from his aristocratic face. The date on the bottom of the screen read _9/15/2050_.

"…_It was a sequence of contact reports on the left shield quadrant,"_ came the man's smooth voice. _"The disturbance then turned into a minor asteroid storm. None bigger than a raindrop."_ Anubis, who had never been an expressive individual that Ryo had ever seen—what little he saw of him during the man's training in the space programs—was suddenly borderline exultant, those tiny asteroids shining in his eyes. _"We had nineteen punctures…it took days of three hour shifts between myself and Cale to patch it up. Nothing serious. I watched them hit us from the observation room. It was…beautiful."_

Ryo paused on Anubis's face and stared at the awe in the man's eyes. Rewound and listened again.

"_It was…beautiful."_

"Why weren't you worried?" he softly asked the image of the captain. "Nineteen punctures, Anubis."

Ryo knew he certainly wouldn't have wasted time watching the asteroid shower from the observation room. That far into the journey, it should have been more cause for alarm. Delivering the payload was everything. Not expressing your admiration for an asteroid storm, however small, that could have permanently damaged the ship.

It was as if Anubis had forgotten the severity of the mission.

He thought of the psychological stresses of extended space travel and wondered at the mental stability of Hariel's crew. At Anubis's thinking in those last months and weeks. What if he hadn't been the only one? What if, after that long year and some months, their minds simply couldn't take it?

That will not happen to us, Ryo thought as White Blaze rubbed his face against the tablet showing Anubis's face and purred.

* * *

From a warm, spacious room inside Inferno—the only room on the entire craft with a view of the star—the sun still burned. The observation room's outer wall was designed to filter out the sun's blinding light, rendering it capable of viewing by the human eye without causing damage. From this view, the sun glowed as the dying embers of a fire; still vivid and bright in hazy, swirling spots, and in others, swirls of darker orange, bordering on black.

The lone occupant in the quiet room took in the sight with an outward, practiced calm. Inside, he yearned for the star's former glory. He grieved for its current state as surely as he would have grieved over an illness in his own child, if he had any.

The room itself was empty save for a long, gently curved metal bench. The man sat in the middle, eyes on the glowing orb directly in the center of the massive thick glass, as tall and long as the large room. His back was straight, shoulders squared, hands in his lap as he took in the quiet and meditated silently, mind thirty million miles away even as he kept a small portion of it fixed on the very reason he was on the ship. Filtered sunlight danced through lush, thick, golden blonde hair that fell appealingly around a strong, handsome face.

The snug, yet open space reminded him of the meditation room in his family home. The dojo the Date clan owned and he had trained in when he was younger. Before it began snowing heavily on his birthday every year. The familiarity that the room, the quiet, and the light brought him, as if leaving the room would find him back in the halls of his childhood home, was soothing. He spent years craving the light of his youth, anything better than the weak sunlight that touched him like a chilled, unwanted hand when one was ill and cold. It had been so very long since he felt _warm_.

"Inferno." His voice was quiet and assured in the stillness of the room.

A pause, and then a soft, feminine, robotic voice answered from the small portable communications device hanging from a thin polyester cord around his neck. "Yes, Dr. Date?"

"Please re-filter the observation room portal."

"Filter up or down, Dr. Date?"

"Down."

The filter adjusted accordingly. The soothing, pale glow was abruptly more vivid. Warm, bright sunlight filled the room. He squinted and then widened his eyes, grey violet irises enlarging as his pupils contracted. The light was glorious. He breathed in slowly.

The question slipped out, borne from honest curiosity. "How close is this to full brightness?"

The soft, mechanically female voice interrupted the silence once again. "At this distance of thirty-six million miles, you are observing the sun at two percent of full brightness."

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, lending his aristocratic face a heart wrenching beauty. His pores seemed to drink it in and his hair absorbed it, spinning it into the gold threads haloing his face. "Two percent," he murmured. He stood up slowly from the bench and moved closer to the glass, inwardly marveling at the novelty of his human vision only capable of viewing the force of the sun's light at such a small percentage. "Can you show me four percent?"

"Four percent would result in irreversible damage to your retinas. However, you could observe three point one percent for a period of not longer than thirty seconds."

Don't do it, the rational, educated part of him warned. Indulging will only encourage this unhealthy preoccupation. You warn your patients of behavior like this.

It was _only_ thirty seconds. And there were already too many things he couldn't have. Sage had been careful for so very long. For sixteen months. After sixteen years of deprivation.

Three point one percent of the sun's full glory seemed paltry. A fleck of gold compared to the entire mountain. He would never be able to adequately explain to someone the need he had for sunlight, to be right in it, to feel it on and beneath his skin.

How he hungered for it.

"Inferno," he said, his heart pounding, "reset the filter to three point one percent. Please."

While retina damage was the last thing on his mind, he nevertheless picked up a pair of sunglasses lying next to the filtration device of the observation room and slid them on before sitting back down.

Distantly, that rational part of him kept warning that sun exposure to this degree was unwise.

Distantly.

The filter went down with a faintly audible click.

The world went white.

He couldn't control the gasp it tore from his throat. Beneath the sunglasses, his eyes narrowed, began to tear up, and then widened. His palms flattened on the cool bench and pressed, as if he were afraid the sheer force of sunlight would knock him backward.

The room no longer existed. Everything pulsated in hot white light, tinged at the edges with pale yellow gold. The sun filled the room, destroying every shadow and dark corner in its wake and leaving nothing but blinding brightness.

The extreme warmth and light were almost writhing, tangible things enveloping him; he felt he could drink them down like life. As painful as it was to look at, staring directly at the thing that was the source of life on Earth, he could not look away.

As suddenly as it embraced him, this cloak of brilliant light, it was gone. The filters returned and the intense, ethereal glow disappeared, leaving imprints of its glory on his vision, blinding him for long seconds. The liquid in his veins was molten gold.

Sage shook his head slowly, waiting for his vision to clear. Shadows returned to the darkened corners of the room and the sun was sick once more, but he couldn't keep the smile off of his face or the small laugh of sheer wonderment from bubbling up his throat like carbonation from a flute of champagne.

The most magnificent thirty seconds of his life.

* * *

"Hey, Ma."

Kento Rei Fuan waved at the little lens and the blinking red dot that recorded him as he collapsed into the chair in front of the camera.

"I got first dibs on sending a message back home today and I didn't even have to get up at the equivalent of five in the morning to do it. Probably because I'm the reason these ruffians can even send messages home this far into the trip." He settled back in the chair and kept his smile buoyant and easy, although this time it felt a little more like a mask he was hiding behind. He never had to force enthusiasm when he recorded messages for his family – it never occurred to him to let his longing to see or talk to them temper the fierce sense of _belonging_ that being a part of this team gave him, the belief he had in their cause—but he felt the strain today.

"I hope business is running smoothly, Papa," Kento said, thinking of the aging man and his dedication to the family restaurant Kento grew up running around, then working in, and then leaving behind for the Pan Asian Space Program. "It's business as usual up here, too. Our package is still secure, thanks to resident genius boy Rowen. We're all healthy, Ma. Sage – well, you know him as Dr. Date, he's just Sage up here - has made it his sole purpose to make sure no one loses their marbles. Captain's good."

That was a lie. Ryo was obsessing over Hariel the closer they got to the sun, and in his fear of infecting the rest of them with his worry, he was starting to pull away. Close off. Kento wasn't having that shit, so something was gonna be done about it. But Ma didn't need to know all that.

"Our pilot is like the extra little sister I never wanted; Chun Fa, I'm telling you, you two would get along. She's a smartass like you. Navigator's still hot, still keeping me at arm's length."

He grinned crookedly. "We have plenty of fresh vegetables for cooking, even after all this time. Cye's made sure we'd be set on food and oxygen for the trip back home, too. He's got a better garden on this ship than most people have in their backyards in the tropics. And the ship is tight as a drum—our engineer's still hot, too, and sharp as a tack. Be jealous, Mei Ryu; I'm around them _all the time_."

Kento imagined his little brother's laughter, his sister's indignant response. Thought of Yun watching quietly and Rinfi holding back tears. She'd always been a hard one to read, but she'd cried during the last video message his family sent to him. So did Ma, for that matter, but he hadn't been expecting it from Rinfi.

He imagined their faces as he told them the news they didn't want to hear. His mother's reaction.

Kento leaned forward in the chair, clasped his hands over his knee, and prepared to break their hearts. "We're pretty far in, though, and I gotta tell you … we'll lose communication for awhile. I might be the badass who built this sweet system, but even I have my limits. I'm no match for space. So here's the deal. There's a lot of space shit—junk, sorry, Ma—interfering with the signal and it gets worse the closer we get to the sun. It's coming early, but it was expected. You probably heard me talk about it before, but we're seven days early in our estimation. We've got solar winds coming through, and the interference will screw with the moon stations picking up our transmissions. Yun, you probably remember a lot more details than I have time to go into, so if you could explain and help Ma and Pa relax, I'd appreciate it."

"This doesn't mean anything is wrong," he stressed, making eye contact with the camera lens. "We just can't communicate until after we deliver the payload and get back out of the Dead Zone so the moon stations can pick up our frequencies again. No, Ma, "Dead Zone" doesn't mean anything other than 'dead air' for communication. So I won't be able to receive any messages for awhile, and I won't be able to send any. As soon as our communications system can pick up and receive again, I will send you all a message letting you know. But it's going to take a few months."

Kento smiled again to hide the skipped beat of his heart, like missing a step on a staircase and feeling his foot hit nothing but air before the fall.

It felt like he was saying goodbye.

"Hell, in a few months, Rinfi, you'll be going back to school in the fall to finish your Master's," he said roughly. "Time like that flies by. It'll go by quick, I promise. I'll be thinking about you guys every day until then. And when I talk to you again?" A thrum of excitement coursed through him like a plucked guitar string and banished his depressing thoughts. He rubbed his hands together and this time, the grin was genuine. "We'll have _done_ it. We'll drop the bomb, knock that Q-Ball out and jump start the sun, just like a car engine. Rev that sucker up and get it doing its job again. Then we'll be on our way home."

Kento winked at the lens. "I'll expect a hell of a homecoming from everybody. For now, though, I've gotta sign off and go make dinner for those hoodlum shipmates of mine. I've been cooking your recipes, Ma, or as well as I can manage with the supplies we have here. This ain't no restaurant kitchen." He paused, swallowed, and straightened back up. "I love you all. I'll talk to you as soon as I can."

He smiled one last time and, with a faintly trembling hand, sent the message.

* * *

The air smelled _green_.

He thought of tide pools tucked away in the cupped palms of rocky alcoves, the smell of seaweed, wet soil, and things growing.

Things grew here, too.

And Cye Mouri tended them, like a faithful gardener, like a caretaker, like a doting father. Encouraging them to thrive, so everyone on the ship could thrive, too.

Water trickled down windows that gathered moss in the crevices, then traveled over a lip of metal and cascaded into a shallow pool where watercress, wild rice, and water chestnuts grew. Units steeped in fertile soil grew carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, and peppers. Counters under grow lights and rows of windows fitted with fans contained even more plant life. The fans whirred slowly, coaxing the oxygen out of the plants and into the ventilation system. The very next room housed more of the same.

Somewhere above Cye, droplets of water fell and landed in his hair and on his forehead. The warmth and humidity made him think of childhood summers in Yamaguchi and trips to the beach, well before the Solar Winter claimed the planet. When green things still grew on Earth in abundance. When he could visit those tiny pools and watch the life teeming within.

No rooms on the ship smelled and felt and tasted more like home as he remembered it before winter came permanently to the whole planet. Living on the spacecraft sometimes felt like living in a time capsule, pre-Solar Winter. He wasn't complaining. Cye never grew tired of marveling at the tiny ecosystem tucked away in two adjoining rooms in the middle of space. He had a hand in its creation, but everything in the Oxygen Garden grew of its own accord, too – he merely guided their production. Because of it all, they had enough oxygen to make it to the sun and a quarter of the way back. And business was booming.

The bronze-haired man leaned a hip against a counter cluttered with hothouse tomatoes and breathed in the smell of life all around him. It almost made him forget what they left back at home; the food shortages, the famines, the bitter, bitter cold and snow.

It almost made him forget what would happen if the mission wasn't a success.

Cye shook his head to evict the negative thoughts. He moved down the narrow aisle and made for the precious few units housing fruits; grapes, peaches, and strawberries. Feeling greedy, he plucked a peach.

"You'll spoil your dinner, young man."

The biologist took the first bite with a defiantly raised eyebrow as the brawny form of the communications officer entered the garden, carrying a large steel bowl.

"I think I'll manage to find room," Cye said dryly. "Pilfering in my garden?"

"If you want to eat that freeze dried shit they gave us a last resort, be my guest. Until then, you're damn right I'm raiding your garden, Farmer Mouri."

Cye smirked when Kento jostled him out of the way to pull out a head of cabbage. "What's on the menu tonight, chef?"

"Chicken stir fry."

"…I am not opposed to cooking again, Kento," he replied.

Kento glowered at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. "Cye waved the peach and bit off a smile. "It's fine. How long did you say we have until we reach the Dead Zone?"

"I can't give you an exact time," Kento admitted after giving Cye one last suspicious look over the vague affront to his menu choice. "I can tell you to record a message before the day's over, because we're looking at less than twenty-four hours before the interference is too much. So if you want to send a little something to that cute mission control operative you sneak off to talk to, the sooner the better."

"I do not _sneak_ off," Cye protested, fighting off a smile. "I give her reports."

"Uh huh."

Cye rolled his eyes. He appreciated the light hearted ribbing, because the reality of the Dead Zone was beginning to weigh on his heart. He wasn't quite sure what to say to his mother and sister when he messaged them, or how to tell them they wouldn't hear from him for almost two months.

If they ever hear back at all, an insidious voice whispered in response.

He blanched. Before the thought could drag him down, as so many what-ifs had been doing the closer they got to the sun, he let the noises of Kento bustling about distract him. Ripping water chestnuts from the pool and placing them in his bowl, muttering to himself about ungrateful shipmates and how he didn't need the resident biologist and cooking connoisseur judging his skills, it wasn't his shift anyway, and if he wanted to complain about the food he could just cook every damn night until they returned to Earth.

Cye finished his peach and followed Kento out of the garden. Needling the communications officer—a man who had fast become one of the closest friends Cye had acquired in his life—was far preferable to worrying about failure.

* * *

Chapter Title Song Reference: "Xibalba," by Clint Mansell. _The Fountain_ soundtrack.


	3. Fame and Fire

Chapter 2

Steam rose from a wok into the air, twisting lazily and permeating the dining area with mouthwatering aroma. Meat and vegetables sizzled inside, dashed with spices and sauce. A large, strong hand held the wok steady while the other tossed the contents lightly to cook them thoroughly.

A vibrantly red head leaned over the counter to watch. She was slender and elfin next to Kento's bulk, her pale pretty face and green eyes peering at the contents of the wok. Tendrils of red hair escaped from her bun and hung precariously close to the cooking food. He swatted at the strands of hair and she reared back to give him a dirty look.

"The recipe did not call for Essence of Robyn," said Kento to Inferno's pilot. He'd tied a fraying, bright orange sweatband high on his forehead to push dark, curling locks of hair back and away from his face. The white shirt strained against pectorals, biceps, and a range of other muscles the ship's communications officer and second-in-command managed to keep in top physical condition for the duration of the trip, a feat which amazed the majority of the crew.

It certainly amazed Robyn McCarthy. She was convinced, near the beginning of the trip, that Kento was taking steroids. There was just no way he was retaining all that muscle in space legally. She'd since learned, though, that he just went above and beyond the required two hours of exercise a day. It was more like four.

"It should," she retorted. Robyn leaned against the neighboring counter to watch at a safer distance, simultaneously appreciating the view of the cooking food and the chef's sturdy, muscular physique. "It'd taste better. What are you making?"

"Chicken."

"I'm sick of chicken."

"And yet you keep eating it."

"Because that's all you make."

"You get next shift, Robert, you make whatever you want. Today, I wanted chicken." He shut off the heat from the burner and lifted the wok to carry it over to a large serving bowl. "Everybody's a critic," he muttered to himself.

"You've had a year to come up with a better insult than Robert. I'm still waiting."

"It _is_ getting rather old," Cye commented from the dining table, his elbow resting on the metal surface with his fist propped under his chin.

Kento set the empty wok down, braced both hands on the counter in front of him, and stared at the biologist with narrowed, dark blue eyes. "Come up with something better, nature boy."

Robyn raised an eyebrow at Cye, to which he cleared his throat and said, "I refuse to put myself in an incriminating position by following through with that request."

Kento snorted. "He's afraid of you."

"Damn right," she said, winking at the biologist.

"Careful now." Rowen Hashiba breezed into the dining area, dressed casually in navy blue lounge pants and a grey t-shirt. The ever-present square communication device around his neck swung gently as he moved. He smirked at Robyn as he pulled back a chair and collapsed in it. "Keep it up and she'll just turn this damn ship around."

Robyn flipped Rowen the bird and slid into her chair with a flourish, enough to send it spinning in a lazy circle. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and for a second imagined herself on a merry-go-round back on earth, clutching the bars of the metal structure instead of the arms of the chair to keep her static while the wheel spun.

As the pilot reached her last spin, Rowen said, "Sixteen months of doing that every day, and you're still not tired of it."

"Nope. Sure am tired of seeing your face every day, though."

"That's not what you said last night."

"Well, gosh, Rowen," Robyn said, opening her eyes wide and innocent. "What _did_ I say? You know how I get sleepy when I'm bored, and you just tuckered me out."

Cye snickered, but Kento threw his head back and guffawed. The redhead smiled sweetly at Rowen as he opened his mouth for a comeback, couldn't muster one, and settled for a head shake and a halfhearted attempt to kick her chair.

"Drop the mic, Robyn," Kento said as he extended his fist in her direction. Robyn rose to bump fists with him, turned to Rowen, and dropped an imaginary microphone in front of his face. He snatched her hand and attempted to pull her down.

"Oh hell no—" Robyn tried to jerk away and a feeble fight began between the two of them, peppered with curses and laughter. Their antics jostled the table and Cye saved a glass of water from spilling.

"Hey, hey, kids!" Kento pointed a wooden spoon at them. "Settle down. Dinner's almost done. Where the hell is everyone else?"

"I think I saw Mia and Rae watching a movie," Cye said, mildly perturbed as Robyn shoved Rowen's seeking hands away and sat back in her chair, glaring at the blue-haired physicist and mouthing…something to him. Cye stood, grateful for a task. "I'll collect them."

He absentmindedly slapped Robyn's outstretched hand for a high five as he headed out to the main hallway that their living compartments branched from. He was still a few doors shy of the room they used for watching movies and relaxing—Rowen insisted on calling it The Lair, as if they were a greaser gang circa the 1950's and not a bunch of highly trained scientists and astronauts—when he heard the sound of televised screaming.

Cye touched a grey pad to the left of the door and it slid up soundlessly. He was immediately confronted with an alien exploding from a man's chest on the wide screen secured to the opposite wall.

Rae must have picked this one.

Neither woman noticed him in the doorway. He watched Mia cringe away from the carnage as the crew members around the dying man scrambled away from the bloody alien ascending from his chest cavity.

"Perhaps this wasn't the wisest choice, given our circumstances," Mia said to her companion uneasily.

Regan replied, "Precisely why we should watch it."

Cye had no idea how the ship's engineer managed to convince Mia Koji, lover of foreign dramas, historical thrillers, and documentaries, to watch her beloved horror films. He was admittedly enjoying the way Mia sat: curled up in the chair as if she could press her body into the cushions and disappear, yet peeking at the unfolding events with a dreaded curiosity. She looked less like a woman in her mid-thirties who happened to navigate the route for the most important mission in mankind's history and more like a coed in a dormitory, scaring herself silly with an ill-chosen movie.

It reassured him, somehow.

The ship's engineer, on the other hand, looked like a girl confronted with the amusement park of her dreams. Regan Sundari's eyes danced with the kind of giddy, gleeful disgust found in the faces of haunted house goers. He had been suckered into watching many films in her genre of choice, and while he did not prefer the vast majority, except for the occasional paranormal thriller, he took pleasure in how they, too, turned her into a younger, less guarded version of herself.

Cye rapped his knuckles on the metal doorframe. Mia started, but Regan merely turned her head, reluctantly tearing her eyes away.

"Dinner soon," he said, then added with a grin, "Another one, Rae?"

"I have a quota to hit."

"I think you've well surpassed your brother's expectations for that challenge."

"You don't know my brother. Have you seen my spreadsheet lately?"

"You're _still_ keeping that?"

Regan bent forward and scooped up a small tablet. She passed it to Cye and he glanced over the detailed log. Her twin brother had challenged her to watch the greatest space and alien movies since the beginning of the film industry, and she was apparently determined to fulfill her end of the bargain.

He saw _Alien_ as the last entry, then Mia under the witness category. Under comments, she had put: _Mia says she finds it distasteful, but I think she secretly likes it. Body language doesn't lie._ Earlier entries included _2001: A Space Odyssey_; they had all watched that, and Rae's single comment summed up everyone's thoughts: _unsettling_. Another recent entry was _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_, with Rowen in the witness category. Under comments: _According to Rowen, the campiest way he's ever lost brain cells. Although he is inexplicably angry with me for bringing the dog man creature into his life. I thought it was hilarious. _

Cye chuckled and handed it back to her. "Well, pause it for now—let's eat."

Both women stood. Regan was a few inches shorter than Mia's willowy frame. She'd put her long, dark brown hair in a loose braid that she began to undo as she walked. Mia did the opposite, using a hair tie around her wrist to pull up her long auburn hair, creating a sleek, fox-like tail.

"Dead Zone's coming in less than twenty-four hours," Cye reminded them.

Mia wrinkled her pretty nose. "I still find that terminology unsettling."

"We could always tell everyone back home that—" Regan pitched her voice to match the cool remoteness of Inferno's computer, or an automated voice on the phone, "—we are sorry, but our signal is currently roaming; connection will resume the moment we have reached a coverage area."

Mia was still chuckling when the observation room's door slid up and Sage stepped out. The doctor greeted all of them, and Cye told him that dinner was ready. He fell in step with the trio.

Sage's heart still beat a rhythm of contentment. He wasn't even aware of how hungry he actually was until Cye mentioned food. It was as if his stomach was satiated with sunlight only until the light was taken away. The thought seemed to reinforce his sensible side's misgivings—he really should keep a close eye on his physical need for those clandestine moments with the sun—but he dismissed it for now. It in no way hindered his ability to assist the other crew members, and their wellbeing mattered a great deal more.

Next to him, Cye discussed something with Mia, referring to Inferno's trajectory a few times. The other silent companion walked next to Sage, fingers running through her dark hair to remove the last few twists of a braid.

She must have felt his eyes on her, for she looked up. Regan stared at him thoughtfully before asking, "How was _your_ therapy session, Doctor?"

Sage suppressed a smile. He supposed his comings and goings did not escape the attention of any of the crew; least of all the sharp eyes of the engineer. "Invigorating. I recommend it. Don't forget your appointment the day after tomorrow."

Her eyes, a pale green that reminded him of the forests near his childhood home when they still flourished, crinkled at the corners. "I've penned it in my planner."

The four joined the other three in the dining area. Everyone was sitting to eat when Kento counted heads. He came up one missing. "Where's Ryo? I slaved over this dinner and if he thinks he's gonna skip out, he has another thing coming."

"He's in his quarters," Mia said. "I'm not sure if he wants to be disturbed."

"Too bad," Kento replied. "It's family dinner. Someone go get his ass."

"You have such a way with words, Kento," Cye teased.

"I volunteer Mia to go get the captain's ass," Rowen said.

Mia rolled her eyes good naturedly and stole away from the group, taking a range of passages to the personal quarters, all clustered together around an octagonal open space. Ryo's closed door of frosted glass was easily identifiable due to the pirate's hat hanging from a hook by the door (courtesy of Robyn) and a picture of Captain Crunch, the old white-haired mascot of a children's cereal, taped to the door itself (courtesy of Rowen). Below the silly picture was a piece of paper taped to the door with one simple line on it: _O Captain! my Captain!_ (courtesy of Rae).

Mia knocked softly. "Dinner, Ryo," she said.

After a moment of silence, the door slid up. Ryo blinked his stunning blue eyes at her, as if roused from a long sleep. He smiled a little sheepishly. "Already?" White Blaze hopped down from the bed and wound around the captain's legs, his long black and white-tipped tail whipping the material of his pant leg.

"You've been in here for awhile," Mia confirmed, bending to greet the cat. His rough, pink tongue licked her fingers.

"Give me a minute."

She waited patiently while he shut down his tablet. Mia didn't have to look at the documents he closed on the screen to know what they were.

Hariel again.

The closer they drew to the sun, the heavier Hariel grew around his neck. Like an albatross. And having him pull away from them now played into the exact fears he had over what caused Hariel to fail.

It had to stop.

"Ryo…" she hesitated. He looked up inquisitively from the tablet he was setting down. She nodded at it. "We will never get the answers we want," she continued, trying to strike a note that wasn't discouraging or too blunt, just…factual.

"I know," he admitted after a pause. He dragged his hand through his thick, raven black hair. "I know, but I…" he stopped to collect his thoughts, as they left his quarters and walked down the hall. He finally shook his head ruefully with a short laugh. "I couldn't stand repeating whatever mistakes Anubis might have made."

"How do you know the fault lied with him?" she challenged.

"How could it not?"

"Did we ever rule out mechanical failure of some kind?"

"We never ruled out psychological failure, either."

Mia sighed. It was an old, frustrating argument that she didn't want to have right before dinner. He was so _set_ on that theory. She refused to rise to the bait and play into his obsession.

He didn't continue and his eyes were still troubled but, like magic, the worry was put to the side and dissolved from his expression the closer they drew to the group. Of all the crew members, Mia had known Ryo the longest; well before either was even in the running to be a part of the Inferno crew. Ryo from six years ago would have worn his worry on his sleeve all through dinner, but over the last few years, he learned to mask his feelings. Whether that was an improvement or not, Mia couldn't say. She didn't think so, and oftentimes found herself missing younger Ryo's playfulness. It was still there, to be sure, but Ryo only brought that side of himself out of hiding once in a great while.

Mia patted his forearm affectionately. "Could you at least…obsess in the common areas with the rest of us?"

Ryo looked down at the floor with a smile. "Yeah, Mia. Gladly."

"Hey, Captain," Robyn greeted when Ryo and Mia joined the table for dinner.

"Hello, Pilot," he called back with a grin. "How's the piloting business?"

Delighted to have him play along, Robyn crossed her arms and leaned forward. "Smooth sailing. Not a cloud on the sky."

"Not even a raindrop?"

"It does not look like rain," Robyn confided.

"Tut tut," Cye and Rae said at the same time.

"Why will _no one_ tell me what that's from?" Rowen asked.

Mia opened her mouth to tell him and Robyn shook her head. "He's _not_ invited into that club," she said. The navigator laughed softly as Rowen looked indignant.

The meal descended into a controlled chaos Mia had grown to love. As an only child, and then living in an empty house after her grandfather died when she wasn't traveling for school and the various space programs, she liked the companionship and happy chatter of those she'd come to care so much for. It was a kind of intimacy she'd never experienced before this trip.

It never failed to amuse her, either, that once this crew gathered for an evening meal— some of the greatest scientific minds on the entire planet sitting at one table—their maturity levels tended to tumble into the adolescent range.

Rowen remarked on Sage's frequent trips to the observation deck and wondered if anyone should evaluate the good doctor, which the blonde took in calm stride. Ryo made a dry remark concerning Rowen's own mental faculties, nearly earning him a smirk from Sage. Mia thanked Kento after he dished food onto her plate, giving him a smile that he readily returned. Robyn watched them over the rim of her cup of water. Regan and Cye discussed the oxygen garden; would Rae like to take a look at a particular unit that appeared to be reading oxygen levels incorrectly? Sage made another remark in defense of Rowen's comments that Mia missed, but Robyn's bright, happy laughter in response rang through the dining area. The noise escalated from there, somehow ending with Kento saying sternly, "If I have to ground all of you disobedient brats, so help me God—"

Mia stayed out of it, happy to sit apart and watch for the evening. She noticed that Ryo, too, looked at them all with fondness, and it relieved her to see him interacting and engaged with the crew, too. It was nice to see Kento teasing him about something, Sage asking Ryo to spar with him later on, and Regan asking him if she could put him down for another sci-fi film.

After awhile, she saw Kento make eye contact with Ryo, who then nodded at him.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the second-in-command called over the din of dinner. "One more time—for the last time. Communications go down sometime during the night. The Dead Zone is coming."

"Dun dun _dun_," Rowen sang theatrically.

"Shut up," Kento said just as theatrically. "Tonight is your _last chance_ to send messages home. Please remind who you are messaging that they cannot send any, either. We're looking at three months, at least, of solar and space interference until we are in the clear again."

The announcement sobered the cheery atmosphere of dinner. Conversation reduced to a murmur. Mia twirled noodles around her fork, her thoughts back to her parents in France. They were already worried sick as it was; they didn't take the news of her involvement well from the very beginning. They tried to stay positive in their videos to her, bless their hearts, but the worry and sadness in their eyes translated loud and clear over the millions of miles. She didn't know what to say for this last message. They would surely think the worst.

Ryo's paranoia was catching.

"They'll be happy you thought of them," a deep voice said quietly beside her.

Mia turned her head. Kento's dark blue eyes held an understanding that tugged at her heart.

"And they'll appreciate that you've always taken the time to keep them informed," he continued. "But I know it's hard. I just sent one to my family. It'll worry them, but they know that the minute we can pick up signal again, they'll be hearing from me. Your parents know that, too."

She smiled, but it faltered when she remembered how much family he left behind; his parents and four brothers and sisters. Her family was miniscule in comparison. She thought of the times she heard Kento laughing in the comms room, talking to Mei Ryu or Chun Fa. "What will you do now that you can't tease your siblings?"

Kento grinned at her. "Tease the hell out of all of you, of course."

"More than you do now?"

"Woman, you have no idea. Just wait."

Mia laughed. He always knew what to say when the stress of the mission or the homesickness became too much. When to joke and when to be serious. Of anyone on the ship, Kento was the ground beneath their feet. She couldn't remember if she told him, really, how he steadied her.

She had a feeling he already knew.

They were still staring at one another once the laughter died. Mia took a second to admire him. Even at rest, Kento looked powerful. He constantly radiated warmth, like Ryo did; only his soothed where Ryo's seared. Mia always wanted to lean into Kento as if he were a crackling fire on a cold night. Words trembled on her tongue, but would not come out. He merely waited, listening to what she would not say. When nothing came, he raised a teasing eyebrow at her and she smiled self consciously. He nudged her shoulder with his and returned to his meal, giving Mia the chance to breathe easier and tune into the table's conversation.

"You were watching _Alien_ without me?" Rowen asked incredulously from across the table. He swung an accusing glance from Regan to Mia.

"You were busy," Regan said. "It was spontaneous."

"It was her idea," Mia explained. "I wanted to watch Amelié. But you can finish it with her. I've had enough imploding aliens for one day."

"I would have dropped everything for a Ridley Scott movie, even if it's just to make fun of the science," Rowen said.

"I have to revolve witnesses," Regan said smoothly. "My brother won't believe me if I only ever mark you down as a witness, Rowen, and Robyn won't watch seventy-five percent of them with me."

"You made me sit through _The Thing_," Robyn said. "_Never again_."

"I have an astounding solution for you, Rae," Rowen replied. "_Lie_."

Both Regan and Sage turned to appraise the physicist, the former with her eyes wide as if she were scandalized at the thought of it.

"It would destroy the sanctity of the challenge," she said seriously.

"Rowen, is it time for another session?" Sage inquired, mockingly polite. "We haven't discussed your unethical behavior in quite some time."

"I will indefinitely skip out on that," Rowen replied. Eyes narrowed, he added, "I want to know what you're writing in our files. Are you reporting any of this back to mission control when we're through? I'd like to burn my copy before it ever reaches them, because I don't think you're unbiased."

As dinner wound down, Cye and Robyn collected plates and cleaned up. Kento left to shower; Ryo, Rowen, Mia, and Sage remained at the table, talking. Regan headed for the small communications rooms to send a message home.

Cye enjoyed the menial task of washing dishes and handing them to Robyn to dry. She had been quiet after Kento's announcement; soaking in the noise instead of participating. He sensed a faint twinge of something that was not quite sadness, a shred of something he picked up from her more often when they were much younger. He considered himself blessed to have one of the crew members be someone he'd known off and on almost his whole life, and did not think it was coincidence that they both ended up in the space program that would put them on Inferno together, no matter how far they had physically drifted over the years. They had been neighbors as children until Robyn was removed from her home due to an abusive, alcoholic father, then pseudo siblings in high school when she returned after living in the United States for almost ten years.

Robyn was, no doubt, thinking that she did not need to bother sending a video message home, for there were no blood relatives to send anything home to. She'd made her peace with that aspect of her life a long time ago, and even told him at one point that as far as she was concerned, all the family she needed was already on board the ship. Cye knew it still had to hurt sometimes, however.

He flicked water at the faraway look on Robyn's face as she absentmindedly dried a dish. It startled her. Before she could say anything, he said, "Want to help me message Mum? She'd love to see both of our gorgeous faces."

Robyn brightened and flashed him an appreciative smile. "I'd like that."

They went in after Regan finished. Cye pulled over an extra chair and they sat close to stay in the camera's viewing range. He pulled up his mother's contact information, but hovered his finger over the record button. "Ready?" he asked.

She nodded, then said, "Wait," and quickly pulled her hair out of its bun. It fell an inch past her shoulders and she mussed it a little. "I suddenly feel like an unwashed street urchin. Your mom is going to wonder if we bathe up here."

"I've already told her that we take Saturday baths and we all share the same bath water."

Robyn was still in stitches over the comment when he hit record. "Hello from your children, Mum," he grinned at the camera amidst gales of her laughter. "Just checking in. Hello to you, too, Sayoko. I love and miss you both."

"Me, too," Robyn croaked after the laughter died. She wiped her eyes and smiled happily at the camera. "I'm taking relatively decent care of your son, but I can't promise he's very clean."

Having Robyn there made it easier for Cye to tell his mother and sister about the coming lack of communication. How it would be a few months before they heard anything. The sting of it didn't feel so bad with her there, softening the blow and cracking jokes that would make his mother laugh.

"Remember," Cye said to the blinking dot, aware that time was running out. Robyn leaned on his shoulder, her arm companionably intertwined with his. "It takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach Earth. One day soon, you're going to wake up, and it's going to be a particularly beautiful, warm day. You'll know, then, that we've made it." His voice grew unconsciously soft. "That we succeeded. And then we'll be on our way home."

"We love you, and we'll contact you as soon as we can," Robyn added. She blew them a kiss and fought back tears.

When they finished, Mia was waiting right outside. Cye dropped a hand on her shoulder and Robyn's smile for her was encouraging. The navigator returned it unsteadily and slipped inside. As the pair left, they could hear Mia say brightly, "_Bonjour, ma famille!_"

* * *

"Rewind to the beginning of that scene. It's the only reason to watch the first one."

Ryo peered into the open doorway of where Rowen now sat with Regan, the former in a comfortable chair and the latter on the longer couch. The blue-haired physicist sat cross-legged and the engineer propped her feet up on the center table. She rewound the chest-bursting scene and told Rowen that the main reason to watch any of them was clearly Ripley.

Mia's request rung in his ears all through dinner. She let him know they noticed. They'd let him be for long enough. He didn't want to be one more burden for them in that way.

He needed to work on fixing that.

The captain cleared his throat and asked, "Mind if I crash this party?"

Rowen craned his neck to glance at him in the doorway. "The more the merrier!"

Regan patted the empty seat next to her. "I can only add you as a witness to my list if you watch an entire film, or at least most of it," she explained as he sat. "Which means you have to stay for _Aliens_."

"I think I can handle that."

"But can you handle the entire quadrilogy?" Rowen dared.

Ryo looked back and forth between the two. He knew they must have sent their messages home; Sage was the last one to go in. Ryo's own had been brief. Rae's would have upset her—it was so hard for her to be away from her twin—and Rowen would have taken his in stride. His mind was already looking ahead; already worrying about his bomb's success. Each of them had individual little worries…and they looked at him as if he needed a distraction the most.

He leaned back into the cushion and propped his feet on the table, next to Regan's. "Give me what you got," he said.

Rowen clapped his hands. "Lock him in for ten movies, Rae. Do it."

The chest-bursting scene began to play, and Ryo could feel his shoulder and back muscles slowly relaxing as the pair with him critiqued the characters and the special effects.

Nevertheless, when the day drew to a close and Inferno reminded them that their sleep cycles should begin within the hour, Ryo found himself back in his quarters, looking over video logs from Anubis and even Hariel's doctor, Sekhmet. He ignored Inferno's soft reminder that disturbances in his sleep patterns had grown more frequent as of late. Should she report it to Dr. Date?

No. The doctor had enough on his plate.

Minutes later he was back in his bed, tablet out, White Blaze sprawled out next to him, with only the voice of a long dead captain keeping him company.

* * *

Rowen lay in his bunk, wide awake. His journal tablet lay on the dresser built into the wall across from his bed. He'd long since shut off Inferno's notifications that he was screwing up his circadian rhythms. She'd been telling him that for half a year.

She would be the only voice they heard for the next few months, other than each other's. He could stand to go one night without it.

It'll be down within hours, he thought, staring up at the ceiling of his bed. Maybe it was going down right now. By morning, they would truly be eight crazy fools alone in space, carrying out the mission that would save the world with no backup from Earth. He thought of the _Alien_ movies he watched with Rae and Ryo. That old, famous tagline.

_In space, no one can hear you scream._

Rowen scowled at the ceiling. He abandoned the bunk and stalked silently out of his quarters. During the sleep cycle, Inferno dimmed the lights around the ship to encourage the notion of nighttime. He followed the low lights along the bottom of the hallway to the medic bay area on a hunch.

His instincts proved right: a lamp was on in the main room of the medic bay. Sage's blonde head was bent over one of the computers, reading glasses perched on his nose. He was updating someone's chart. Rowen tapped his fingers along one of the metal counters to announce himself.

The doctor didn't bother looking up as he said, "Have a seat, Rowen."

"I don't want a session," he replied. "I want an opponent."

Sage looked up, then, and took off his reading glasses. "I'll play white."

"As always."

Since Rowen didn't need a physician tonight anymore than Sage needed him to talk about the bomb, he took the doctor out of the medic bay and put Sage in his comfort zone.

They moved to the observation room to play a game of chess. As much as Rowen gave Sage grief over his need for this room and the sun's warmth, he understood it. He made sure the filter's exposure wasn't excessive, though, because Sage's fair skin could only handle so much. It helped the man relax, which benefited Rowen, because then Sage dropped his job for awhile and acted more like himself. He'd been a tough nut to crack during their training—the man took professionalism to another level—but challenges were Rowen's specialty. If he couldn't get under the skin of every person on board this ship, then what kind of genius was he?

They sat on the floor, cross-legged, with the chess board between them. In the background, the sun pulsated, blasting away any notion of night with its constant presence. Rowen chattered away as he played and Sage listened quietly, interjecting with a few comments here and there. Every so often, their conversation was peppered with Inferno's reminders, coming from Sage's comms device, that it was far too late to be awake.

"Does she realize the sun is right there?" Rowen asked, throwing a hand to the left.

"I think she does, but not in the way you or I realize it," Sage said, amused. "Do you want me to permanently disable Inferno's sleep cycle reminders?"

Rowen's mouth quirked. "Isn't that against your medical opinion?"

"It's not as if you listen to her."

"You're up," Rowen noted.

"I don't make a habit of it."

"You sure about that?"

Sage exchanged a glance with him before looking away, causing Rowen to smirk before returning to contemplating his next move. "You want to talk about it?" Rowen asked.

"No."

His stiff response made Rowen laugh. "I am a doctor, too, you know."

"Not the kind of doctor I would ever go to for my psychological needs."

Rowen thought Sage's indignant response was hilarious; the blonde did not find it that funny. They kept playing for another hour, and Rowen felt considerably lightened. The game occupied his restless mind; his friend's presence made him feel like he could _rest_ now.

Far more effective than a machine telling him to sleep.

* * *

Chapter Title Song Reference: "Family and Genus," by Shakey Graves


	4. Far From Home

Chapter 3

It arrived in the predawn hours.

At 5:54 a.m., East Coast time, communications were disrupted by solar interference. The Dead Zone cut them off from mission control and all contact with Earth.

They were on their own.

Kento stared at the communications console, his hands braced on the counter that displayed the confirmation of what he had known was coming for weeks. In the background, Inferno's soft voice gave him verbal confirmation.

He could not banish the rock sitting in his stomach.

He sighed, drummed his fingers on the counter, and flipped on the light box communication system that he developed years ago, one that cancelled out the noise of background interference like radiation storms and solar flares. The light box comms system was a thick beam of light between two pieces of computer equipment that picked up signals from the communications towers spinning near the tail end of the ship. When Kento leaned forward and the beam of eerie green light washed over him, he could hear nothing but what lied in space all around them, letting him know if anything came their way that could harm the ship or damage communications.

What he heard was the space equivalent of static on an old telephone with a bad signal.

He blew out another breath.

Was this how Dais, the communications officer of Hariel, felt when their comms system went down? Helpless, isolated, and alone?

It wasn't as if mission control could do anything to help us, anyways, he reasoned. Even if contact remained intact. It had always been up to them: their perseverance, their intelligence, their capabilities. And he had faith in every member aboard Inferno.

_Dais had faith in his crew, too, and look where that got them._

"Quit it," he groaned to himself, leaving the beam and the space noise to rest his elbows on the counter and press his thumbs into his closed eyelids. A headache brewed behind his eyes. "Inferno," he said heavily. "Estimated time for reestablished communication with Earth."

"Fifty to fifty-six days, Kento."

"Great."

Which also meant that his main job was obsolete for almost two months. What the hell was he supposed to do with himself now?

Kento left the communications room with a dark cloud hanging over his head. So dark, in fact, that he nearly ran over a white and black cat in the hallway. White Blaze meowed at him indignantly. "Sorry, buddy." He bent down to pet the animal and continued on his way to the Oxygen Garden. When he entered, the small cat streaked inside before the door slid shut.

"We've hit the zone," Kento announced. "Comms went down two hours ago." He found Cye perched on a metal counter, harvesting beans from a vine into a bucket. The biologist looked way more at ease than Kento felt; his auburn hair was still damp, probably from a recent shower, and he was barefoot. Music played softly from an iPod on the counter next to him. Cye's brows furrowed as he digested the information, but he only shrugged.

"Nothing to be done about it."

"Yeah, I know. I still don't like it," Kento muttered. "Despite the data, I had kind of hoped the updated system would preserve the signal longer than Hariel's had, at least for that week, but no dice. Now I guess I'm twiddling my thumbs for three, four months."

"Shouldn't be a problem for you," Cye teased. His gaze focused on something in another row, and his voice sharpened. "White Blaze, no."

"He's not doing anything but chilling," Kento defended. "You need to learn forgiveness, compadre."

"An entire _box_ of basil, Kento."

"Cat's gotta eat, too!"

"Purina donated four years of food for that animal. He doesn't need our food, too. Nor does he need to use it as a litter box."

"Let him live, man."

"I'll keep an eye on him," came a feminine voice from somewhere Kento couldn't see. He moved to another row and spotted Regan sitting on a small ladder, in the act of repairing an oxygen unit. She'd removed the protective casing over the fan and was inspecting the inside, carefully pushing aside the lush green plants that lived in the circular compartments and transported fresh oxygen all throughout the ship.

"Nah, I got him," Kento said. He found White Blaze dipping his paws in the water chestnuts and whisked the cat in his arms before Cye could see. "Quit that," he whispered. White Blaze mewed innocently. "What's going on, girlfriend?"

"A working sensor is what's _not_ going on."

"So it is broken?" Cye asked.

"You bet," she said faintly, distracted by the hardware in front of her. "I used your other reader, and the oxygen levels in this unit match the rest. You're overproducing, if anything. Just to be sure, though, I'd like to do a check on all of your units to make sure there aren't other frayed wires giving you false readings. It'll take me a few days, unless boyfriend here wants to help a girl out."

"He wants to." Kento clapped her on the shoulder. "It'll be like our postgrad days all over again."

"I don't see any alcohol around here."

"Girl, we could make our own moonshine. We've got some yeast around here somewhere, don't we?"

"That's exactly what mission control wants to hear," she said dryly. "That we made moonshine with the supplies they gave us."

"They don't have to know."

"It's not like we're surrounded by cameras," Cye quipped, sharing a grin with Regan.

"Kento, use your powers for good and help me start testing these—the unit log is by the computers," the engineer said. "Then go rescue Mia from math calculations. She could use a break at some point today."

"I like that second order."

"I'll bet."

Having a plan for the day settled the comms officer down almost as well as the company and the garden did. The prospect of bugging his favorite navigator was the cherry on top.

* * *

"If we survive, the first thing I'm going to ask for is a giant cheeseburger, loaded with toppings. With seasoned fries. No, I want to eat it at a restaurant: I want to gorge myself and sit and watch people walk by."

"Go bigger than that, man. Know what I'm going to do if we make it back?"

"Tell everyone to call you mankind's savior, fire up all the religious folk?"

"That, and do a Rolling Stone spread. Right before my worldwide TED Talks tour."

"Of course."

Rowen gazed ahead as if he were seeing that future instead of the blinking lights, maps, and space charts that comprised the majority of the pilot deck. "The masses have to know. Our story needs to be told. I'd also find a ridiculously hot model—she'd be at the Rolling Stone New York office—and she'd keep me company while I'm on the road. She can bring her friends, too."

Robyn grinned up at Rowen. "How generous of you."

"I have a giving nature."

She laughed at him, and although he frowned at her, his blue eyes sparkled with amusement. Robyn was glad Rowen came to visit her while she did her routine check of the pilot operating system and the route. She didn't think the communication shut down would bother her, but she lay in her bunk that morning and realized that all the weekly check-ins with real live people on Earth would completely stop. Cye wouldn't get to flirt with that cute mission control botanist he sent reports to. Rae and Kento wouldn't be able to touch base with their families.

Inferno would get that much quieter.

Rowen's loud presence and morbid sense of humor was exactly what she needed.

"I'd want to hole up in a library for awhile, too," Rowen supplied. "Specifically this library in Vancouver that looks like the Colesseum. My mom took me there once when I was a kid, on one of her assignments. It used to have a rooftop garden."

"Yeah? That's cool. I have another one. I want to invade a bakery."

"Ohh, that's a good one."

"The smell of baking bread, those giant display cases of pastries and cookies and muffins. The cute little bars with honey and cinnamon to add to your drink." Robyn hugged herself, closed her eyes, and breathed in as if she could smell it.

Rowen chuckled. "You and food."

The redhead shrugged. "It's not just that. It's the people, too. Clinking glasses, brewing coffee, talking and laughing. The sound of life. I miss it. It's so silent up here." Her wistful, lighthearted demeanor dimmed a little. "When I'm sitting here alone, the air is so still and empty." She gestured to the pilot deck around her; the equipment and vid cameras. "And at night. It's easy to forget the rest of you are here sometimes. I never knew a living space like this could be so enclosed and boxed in, yet feel so large, you know?"

He knew. Rowen stayed quiet, but gently nudged her knee with his foot. He sat on a counter opposite of her with his feet resting on her chair. "You know Sage's precious Earth Room has that simulation."

"You, of all people, recommending the Earth Room?"

"Doesn't work for me, but it might work for you."

"Maybe. It has occasionally." Robyn's gaze strayed to the monitors to keep an eye on the space aerial graph; always on the lookout for passing meteors, space debris, or anything that could get in their path and harm the ship. "You know what I miss? Grass. I miss grass under my feet."

"Overrated."

"_You're_ overrated," she shot back.

"That's not what you said—"

"I will punch you in the face if you finish that sentence."

"Why? Gives them something to talk about," Rowen smirked.

"Gives _your_ ego a boost." Robyn shoved his feet off her chair, making him stand upright. "No one is even here to hear you, goofball."

Instead of leaving, the physicist strolled to the empty seat next to Robyn and sat down. "We're in space, Robyn, of course no one can hear you scream." He cocked an eyebrow. "Unless you wanted them to and you were into that sort of thing."

The redhead immediately went for his ribcage. Having nowhere to escape to, Rowen tried to fight her off and lost due to the enclosed space. Both of them were gasping with laughter as she tickled him and taunted, "Who's screaming now?"

* * *

A fine mist gathered on the forest floor. Early evening sunlight slanted through the trees in thin slices of golden light. Katydids sang their low, droning tune in the background, signaling the end of summer.

Sage sat on his haunches in the center of the small room, his head bowed. He breathed deeply; he could even smell the pine and cedar. The trees looked real enough to reach out and touch. The ground under him, however, was flat and cool. Not at all like a busy forest floor.

Nonetheless, his mind was at peace.

"Inferno," he said softly, "please end simulation when I exit."

"Yes, Dr. Date."

He rose smoothly and padded out of the room in socked feet. At home, he preferred to meditate barefoot, but he found the entire ship to be a mite too cold for his liking. After he shut the door to the Earth Room, he could see the simulation dissolve through the frosted, opaque glass, turning the forest inside into an empty white room. The clock on his computer told him half an hour had passed; that was sufficient. The twinge of apprehension he felt from their entrance into the Dead Zone was gone.

Now he could work.

He sat at his desk in the main open room of the medic bay and opened the files for each crew member to update them. Mia's showed up first. He wasn't overly concerned about Mia—she was good about talking to him when she needed it beyond the monthly check-ins, and almost always forthright about what bothered her. Regardless, he had a mind to ask Kento to begin tai chi with her again. Their rendezvous with Mercury was only a month away, and they relied on Mia's expertise to leap that last hurdle before the payload was delivered. It would be stressful and time-consuming for her in the coming weeks. Inferno informed him that Mia was in her room, already going over calculations. He would touch base with her in a few days.

Cye was next. The biologist was also honest with him, and always able to occupy his time with the garden and their food and oxygen supplies. He called up the video cameras in the Oxygen Garden, and found Cye, Kento, and Regan inside. Cye was picking beans and laughing, his head bowed; Kento had White Blaze in his lap, absently stroking his back while he talked animatedly. Regan sat on a step ladder with some parts in her hands, her head tilted as she listened to Kento. He found Robyn and Rowen in the pilot deck, talking. That was good. The pair of them were his worst patients, prone to scoffing at his attempts, like Rowen did, or flat out refusing to talk to him, like Robyn. At least they were talking to each other. No one else on the ship could keep Rowen in check quite like Robyn could.

He spent longer than he intended on updating and prepping their files for the next two months, inputting appointments, reviewing notes from previous sessions with all of the crew members. By the time he finished his last—their captain—his lower back was protesting the length of time he'd sat and worked. It was a good place to stop; their captain was his main concern of the moment anyhow, second only to Rowen. This, he could do something about now.

Sage found the captain in a small conference room they used for meetings or to do solitary work. Ryo was filing reports that would be stored and delivered to mission control when communications returned, just as diligently as the doctor did.

"When you are finished," Sage told him, "your session with me begins."

* * *

Kento spent the rest of the afternoon helping Rae check half of the units, and then took over while Regan performed the mainframe's maintenance check.

Sometime after lunch, he left the garden to grab something out of his room. On his return, he passed by the pilot deck and spotted Robyn sitting in the pilot's chair with Mia standing behind her, leaning over and gesturing to something. He was surprised to see the navigator out of her room, and a little disappointed that he missed the chance to go get her himself.

Robyn was laughing and talking in a hushed voice, sitting with her feet tucked under her. A small smile quirked Mia's lips. Her auburn hair was loose, and she reached up to tuck some of it behind one delicate ear. She was wearing a shirt made of a material that hugged her figure, and Kento let his gaze drop and move back up to her toned arms and graceful neck. Damn, but it was hell to share such close living quarters with someone like her. His harmless crush during training developed into something Kento tried his hardest to suppress, since mission control generally frowned upon fraternizing among crew members.

Well, shit, they should have thought of that before they picked the crew. The brightest minds in mathematics, aviation, and engineering couldn't have been old, grizzled men; no, they had to be beautiful women he happened to like a hell of a lot, one of which he'd give a kidney to have in his quarters every night. And he knew he wasn't the only one struggling. What did they expect?

He watched Mia for another moment as she laughed at something Robyn said and ran her fingers through her hair. Kento prowled over quietly while they were distracted by whatever they were watching on the vid cameras.

Kento was directly behind Mia now, close enough to touch her hair. She smelled faintly of ginger and cinnamon. He wanted to lean in and breathe her in, but instead he lightly pinched her sides and said, "_What_ are you two doing?"

Mia yelped in surprise and whirled around. She slapped his hands away. "Kento!"

He grinned at her as she flushed and tried to step away and out of his space, but couldn't because she backed right into Robyn's chair.

"Got an answer for me?" he asked. He knew he was crowding her, but by the darkening of Mia's already deep green eyes and the way her glance darted down and up to his face, he knew she didn't really mind. It made his heart sing.

"_I_ do," Robyn said, looking back at the pair of them with amusement. "And it's none of your business. Go pounce on someone else."

"Naw. The only one I'd pounce on is right in front of me." He winked at Mia.

She tilted her chin up and gave him a superior look despite the color in her cheeks. "Kento Rei Fuan, that kind of talk is unbefitting among present company."

"You mean Robyn? She doesn't mind."

"Robyn minds," the redhead said.

Mia poked him in the chest and drew closer so their noses were almost touching. He swallowed as all of the humor drained out of him. "Go help Cye, I'm busy," she whispered.

Kento nodded as if he was a genie and she held the lamp, instructing him on what to do. He let out a breath and backed away, glaring at Robyn when she smirked at him and waved goodbye.

He made it back to the Oxygen Garden by memory only, because the trip there was a blur.

Cye raised an eyebrow at him as Kento collapsed on the stepladder and scrubbed his hand through his hair.

"Woman is killing me," Kento said. "I am not going to survive the trip home."

"Might I suggest indefinite cold showers?"

"Why don't you take a long walk off a short pier, pal?"

* * *

Ryo almost didn't see the attack coming in time.

A bamboo sword whipped by his ear in a rush of hot wind. He dodged it and retaliated. The crack of wood on wood splintered the air of the exercise room.

"Distracted?" his opponent asked mildly.

"Hardly," he gasped. Chest heaving and muscles taut with anticipation, the captain slowly twirled his bokken and watched the blonde swordsmen and kendo master masquerading as a doctor circle him. Sage looked like he'd barely broken a sweat.

"Your attention has been diverted lately," the blonde observed, raising his bokken to a guard position. "It fractures your focus; plays into your fears about Hariel. What good can come from pulling away from the crew to dwell?"

Ryo rolled his shoulders and neck. They continued to circle one another as he reflected on a response and watched Sage like a hawk.

The exercise room was empty except for them. The informal practice wasn't following traditional kendo rules; neither of them was armored or even wore shirts, just thin, dark blue hakama. No shoes. The room grew hot quickly, and after a few kata practices, the formalities were abandoned in favor of all out sparring.

This was good. Ryo appreciated the doctor's suggestion and knew the sparring doubled as exercise, stress relief, and therapy. Ryo could feel it working on him: he felt alive, centered, and steadier than he had in weeks.

"This is the answer to helping me focus," Ryo began, "letting me take swings at you with a weapon?"

Sage smirked. "If you would ever land a swing, Captain."

Ryo's breathless laugh doubled as a baring of teeth as he settled into a ready stance, his blood humming with life, adrenaline coursing through his body. He had been so focused on his opponent that it took another circle in the center of the room for Ryo to notice that they weren't entirely alone; he could see the shadow of figures hanging around the doorway. A glimpse of unmistakable red hair identified one of the watchers.

Something swelled in Ryo's chest as he averted his gaze back to Sage. Normally he didn't care for an audience, but in this case…

He didn't mind.

The doctor's attention on him was steady and his face composed, but his violet eyes sparked with the same fervor and force of will. Sage needed the release as much as he did. It had to be hard to bear the emotional loads of everyone on board at the expense of his own. The blonde hung back like a cobra waiting to strike, and Ryo felt his hackles rise like a wolf's.

Sage sprung, swinging the bokken forward. Ryo slapped away the wooden sword with his own. A flurry of motion ensued as the weapons clashed with sharp cracks and the two dodged one another's barely checked blows, feet skidding on the floor, sweat flying, muscles burning as pent up pressure exploded with the force of their body's movements.

The watchers creeping out in the hall never averted their gazes from the ongoing match in the exercise room. Mia had one hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Robyn looked like the cat that ate the canary as she sipped hot chocolate from a mug.

"Kento is not the only one in excellent physical condition," Mia murmured.

"No he is not," Robyn agreed. Her eyes followed the captain's movements; the deeply tanned skin, the defined abdominal muscles, the broad shoulders and strong back muscles moving sleekly as he guarded his torso from a hit and drove Sage to the other side of the room. His thick black hair was damp with sweat and there was a glow to his bright blue eyes that she hadn't seen in months. Sage was paler but just as gloriously lacking a shirt; his build was solid and defined, almost broader in the chest than Ryo. His blonde hair was damp, too, and occasionally swept back from his face to reveal both piercing violet eyes. The skill they both displayed was breathtaking. They moved like predators. She forgot, sometimes, that all of the men on the ship were not just scientists, doctors, and astronauts: they were martial artists of one variation or another and just as physically formidable as they were mentally.

"Bless us, everyone," Robyn said.

"Amen," Mia replied. "And I knew Sage was talented, but … dear me ... Should we go fetch Rae?"

"It would completely shatter her concentration, and she's working," Robyn said regretfully. "Besides, I feel like it would be rubbing salt in a wound."

Mia made a noise of sympathy that quickly turned into a smothered gasp as Ryo almost whopped Sage on the head if the blonde hadn't jumped gracefully out of the way.

The captain paused in his pursuit, bokken out in a guard position as Sage circled him. Without taking his eyes off the doctor, he called out, "Can we help you, ladies?"

Mia instantly turned red, her hand flying to her mouth again. They knew! How inappropriate, how _improper_ to get caught gawking at her captain and her doctor while they—how long had Ryo known—

Robyn grinned and stepped around the frozen navigator to stand in the doorway. "No," she said, sipping her cocoa. "You can carry on, though." Ryo flicked his gaze over to her and then briefly to Mia, his eyes brightening with amusement.

Sage raised an eyebrow at Robyn. "Care to join us?"

"Nope," Robyn said, her green eyes sparkling over the rim of her mug. "Please continue." Ryo grinned.

Mia wanted to sink into a hole in the ground. She backed out of the room slowly, grabbing Robyn's shirt sleeve to take her with.

"Bye!" The pilot called cheerily. She raised her mug in a toast. "Ryo, I hope you win!"

"He won't," Sage said as Mia hustled Robyn out of the exercise room.

* * *

Music played in the outer room of the dual engine area, audible even though the dividing door was shut.

The engine room itself held all the warmth of a meat locker.

It housed Inferno's core mainframes; massive, triangular pieces of machinery that acted as the heart of the craft, running its veins and arteries through the entire ship. Keeping the heart beating. They worked hard and so the machines, like any computer, overheated easily. Each of the four towers was submerged in coolant tanks of frigid water with temperatures ordinarily found in the arctic, keeping the engines cool and operating normally. The small room that housed them was just as chilly.

Inferno's engineer made a habit of keeping a hat and gloves on hand; she'd pulled her hair back in a ponytail underneath the gray stocking cap that kept her ears warm. Her nose was still cold and the chill seeped past her insulated, long-sleeved top. Her breath plumed as she took each mainframe out of the coolant for maintenance checks.

"Regan?" Inferno asked serenely.

If the towers were the heart, Inferno's intelligence system was the brain. Regan's brother used to make uncomfortable references to HAL from _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (watching the movie had not helped), but his fears were unfounded. Inferno acted like a den mother, hovering just in the background and ensuring her children didn't do anything to jeopardize their health—or the mission.

"Yes?" Regan replied on a hard exhale. She didn't know how this bit came loose on a portion of the motherboard, but it had at some point since the last check. It was lower on the mainframe and therefore closer to the pool of water it rose from. She had to get on the floor, roll up the sleeves of her top, and lie on her side to fix it. Regan put her body weight into tightening the bolt with a wrench, the cold metal of the floor digging into her elbow.

"Your maintenance program allows fourteen minutes for the mainframe to remain out of the coolant tank." As the ship spoke, a red warning sign flashed at her from a display face on the tower, declaring the temperature growing too hot as it remained exposed to the cool air of the room and not inside its home of frigid waters.

"Noted," she said shortly. She bit her lip and twisted the bolt a few more times, and then addressed another that looked like it wanted to be a problem in a few weeks. The physicality of it was a welcome distraction, as the work for Cye was earlier. She hadn't slept well after sending that last message home to her brother, her father, and four-year-old niece.

Five. Five years old now.

She went through bouts of homesickness that cut her to the bone, but she'd gotten to a comfortable place where it was bearable for long stretches. The inability to communicate at all, however, was doing strange things to her state of mind.

She suddenly couldn't remember the last thing she said to her twin before leaving Earth. Couldn't remember the last time she heard Jude's infectious laugh. Not that he'd laughed much in the past few videos. He faked cheerfulness well, but the separation wore on his ability to lie to her through body language. Jude had known the Dead Zone was coming for weeks, and he had grown graver in their correspondence as it approached. In their last talk, he'd looked like she felt right now. Wearing that unspoken worry like a second skin.

_What if you don't come home? What if I never hear from you again? What am I going to do?_

Regan's heart twisted. She mimicked the pinch of pain by turning the wrench with a little more force than needed.

Maybe that was it, coupled with the chilled air of the room numbing her hands—has she really forgotten her gloves?—she didn't know, but Regan lost her grip on the wrench. It slipped from her grasp and fell in the icy water.

With a curse, she plunged her hand in to retrieve it before it sank. She searched the waters even as the shock of the cold jolted her system and set her skin on fire, all the way up to the wrist. A warning sign flashed in her brain that the coolant water was _not_ suitable for human beings. Her fingers grasped metal as a low panic gripped her, because she could not have a foreign object floating around in the coolant tank and if she had to dive in…

As soon as the wrench was pulled out and clattered to the floor, the white hot pain of the extreme temperature engulfed her hand. Regan hissed held her hand to her chest, opening and closing it into a fist over and over. Little clumps of slushy ice clung to her knuckles and the back of her hand.

"Might I suggest running lukewarm water over the appendage," Inferno coolly recommended.

"Thank you," Regan said through gritted teeth. She stood and paced, cradling her hand like a wounded animal, forcing herself to wiggle her fingers to encourage circulation, even trying to place it between her bare skin and the insulated shirt before the cold became unbearable. She didn't do what Inferno suggested until her maintenance check was completed, finishing a check on the last mainframe and logging it in the system one handed.

After assuring herself that the heart was functioning fine, Regan turned her attention back to her throbbing hand and left the engine room, pulling off the stocking cap and dropping it on the counter in the warmer vestibule area. She walked quickly to the communal bathroom area, one that branched into two sections by gender for the showers. The central area housed the sinks, towels, and basic hygienic needs.

Regan turned the hot and cold valves on one of the sinks and tested the temperature with her unaffected hand until it was satisfactory. Her left hand was a curious mixture of numb and riddled with pins and needles traveling up and down her fingers, palm, and into her wrist. It burned like fire when she placed it under the stream of water.

Her hand was turning an angry red, but she was gaining a little feeling back, which was encouraging. Regan turned off the water, thinking she could probably wrap it in a warm damp washcloth and then slather it with lotion later. She pressed her still cold hand to her face, whimpering a little as the pins and needles still stabbed her tender flesh.

Last time she _ever_ made that mistake again.

She turned to get a washcloth and almost ran into an oncoming shirtless Sage Date.

"Excuse me," he said with surprise.

Regan stared at him, heart in her throat.

Sweat beaded on his collarbone, down his temples, over his shoulders to his biceps. His broad chest was inches from her. If she wanted to, she could reach out and touch the impressive abdominal muscles owned by the ship's doctor.

Regan's brain short circuited, and there was suddenly no air in the washroom.

"Hey, Rae," Ryo chirped happily. The captain sidestepped the frozen physician and smiled at her. He was also missing a shirt, and had the body of an ancient Greek marble statue wrapped in bronzed skin.

Dear _Christ_.

The engineer knew her face was as red as her hand. She quickly hid the injured hand behind her back and said weakly, "Hello. I—excuse me, I need to—"

She'd been too obvious about hiding her hand, and realized her mistake the moment Sage's eyes zeroed in on her awkward stance.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"It will be when you both dress." She needed to get away from him.

Sage shook his head at her. "Let me see your hand. What did you do?"

She sighed with despair. He would dig in his heels now. "It's nothing. I dropped a tool in the coolant tank and fished it out."

"With your bare hands?" Ryo asked.

"It was instinctive," Regan shot back defensively.

Sage made a _let me see_ motion. She looked at him stubbornly.

"Regan," Ryo said firmly.

She shot the captain a hard look that dissolved as the throbbing in her hand intensified. Reluctantly, she produced her left hand for the doctor's inspection.

His lips pursed as he laid his large hand over hers, turning it over palm up and inspecting her fingers to check for blistering. Damp blonde hair fell forward, and with his free hand, he scooped it back from his face. "How long was it in the coolant tank?"

"Seconds. It looks worse than it is, I promise you. It's fine."

"Let me get a towel," Ryo said, skirting past her for the bin of washcloths.

"Put a shirt on first, Ryo Sanada," she demanded. She could sense more than hear him laugh at her. She backed away from Sage, but he wouldn't relinquish her hand. "You, too," she told him, feeling the desperation of an animal in a trap. Regan stared at the floor as Sage covered her inflamed hand with both of his to warm it. He knew better than to rub her fingers; he simply held her hand and applied very little pressure.

"Does it hurt?" he asked with a particular gentleness.

Pain, embarrassment, the weight of the mission, missing her brother, the kindness in his voice—it all compounded until her throat hurt with held back tears. Regan nodded without looking at him.

"Go into my office and wait there; we'll get you an ointment and wrap it until the swelling goes down. Watch it for blistering. I'll only be five minutes or so."

Ryo handed over a towel and Sage loosely wrapped her hand in it. She thanked him, glancing up at him quickly. His face was composed, his violet eyes steady on her but unreadable. She took a deep breath, nodded to both of them, and left.

Regan didn't go to Sage's office first. She wandered to the pilot area and found Robyn sitting at her station, reading. White Blaze was curled up on her lap, sleeping. The engineer sat gingerly in the chair next to her, back ramrod straight.

Robyn brightened to say hello, but then her gaze sharpened. "Rae, are you okay?"

"Let me tell you about the time I embarrassed myself like a champion."

"When?"

"Just now."

Robyn turned in her chair to face Regan, waking up White Blaze. She appeased the cat by scratching under his chin. "Do tell."

Regan leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, the left one still wrapped in the towel. It was scratchy against her cheek.

"Did you drop something in the coolant tank again?"

"Don't say it like I do it on a weekly basis," Rae mumbled into her hands. "If Sage thought that, he'd insist on supervising."

Robyn took Regan's hand and removed the towel. "Ow," she said, clasping the engineer's cold red hand between hers to help warm it. "Speaking of our hot doctor, I saw him and Captain Gorgeous sparring not too long ago. They were shirtless." Robyn's face split into a wide grin, her eyes taking on a dreamy quality. "It was glorious. Ryo has the best skin I've ever seen, especially when it's glistening with sweat. And Sage is hiding a physique to die for. I always seem to forget, and then when he lets his hair down like a normal human being, those abs are the most pleasant surprise ever. I wanted you to see it, but I knew you were earning your keep in the refrigerator everybody calls an engine room and I thought it'd be a terrible distraction and you might, I don't know, drop something in the coolant tank as a result, but you did that anyway. Should have called you over."

Regan rolled her eyes. She leaned over to pet White Blaze. "Don't worry, I saw them."

Robyn's mouth dropped. "Say what now?"

"I was taking care of my hand in the washroom when they came in. I almost ran into Sage's naked chest."

The redhead clapped a hand over her mouth. A squeal of delight escaped. "No! What did you do?"

"I acted like I've never seen a shirtless man in my entire life." Regan's face felt flaming red again. "He found out about my burn and then stood there—didn't even bother to go fetch a shirt first—just stood there _shirtless_, and warmed my hand with his and then told me to go to his office."

Robyn barked out a laugh and Regan shushed her, looking around in paranoia. "First of all, I am so jealous you saw them that close and that naked. Was Sage sweaty? Were you as red as you are right now?"

"Worse," she groaned. Robyn shook with laughter, bowing her head to rest on White Blaze's furry back. The cat abruptly got up in her lap, arching his back and yawning. He glanced at them both in sleepy irritation.

Regan gave the cat a stroke of apology, and because it was Robyn, added with a shy, almost giddy laugh, "I was so close I could _smell _him. He smelled like sweat with a faint hint of the incense he sometimes burns when he's meditating. And…_man_."

The pilot lifted a fist to her mouth and closed her eyes.

The brunette was disgusted with her own thoughts. He wasn't just her doctor, he was her _therapist_. He knew more about her than most people, because his psych evaluations of the crew were big factors on whether or not they were ultimately chosen to join the mission. She kept trying to tell herself that feeling attraction towards someone in a position of authority who occupied such an intimate role—like a therapist—was not uncommon and would pass.

It would pass. It had to.

"I will never be able to scrub that image from my head whenever I see him now," Regan whispered.

"At least you made him feel appreciated."

"I'm so sure he sees it that way."

"He's still a man. Ryo didn't mind an audience. That fox."

"A lot of help our captain was. He just laughed at me."

"You don't get flustered all that often, I'd have probably laughed, too." Regan looked so miserable that Robyn ruffled her hair affectionately. "Don't over think it. You were caught off guard. Sage will be totally professional no matter what." Robyn heard herself and made a face. "Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure."

Regan waved it off. "It is what it is. It's my problem, not his."

Robyn looked at the engineer and one of her dearest friends thoughtfully. After having ample time to watch every member of the crew closely and see how their interactions with one another changed over the long months, Robyn wasn't so sure it was just Rae's problem.

But that wasn't her secret to tell.

"Ladies." A large, tanned hand clamped down on Robyn's shoulder, and the other on Regan's. They looked up, and Ryo looked down at them. He had changed into a simple gray t-shirt and pants and his hair was still damp from showering.

"Did you win?" Robyn asked.

"Only because you were there to cheer me on," he said, tousling her hair a little. Robyn beamed. He leaned over to greet White Blaze; the cat nuzzled his hand and purred. Regan watched them, noting the faint flush on Robyn's pale cheeks with the captain so near. They caught one another's eye and Regan smiled slowly. Robyn covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes sparkling.

Ryo turned a slightly disapproving gaze on the engineer. "Someone is waiting for you." He glanced at her hand again. "Please be more careful."

"I will," she sighed.

As she loitered, a green button on the comms device around her neck blinked. Sage's calm voice emitted from it. "You are not in my office, Miss Sundari."

Robyn smirked, but patted Regan's hand. "Enjoy your office visit."

"Thanks." Regan saluted Ryo as she walked by.

The captain slid into the empty chair. White Blaze abandoned Robyn's lap in favor of his owner's.

"I see how it is," Robyn complained. _I'd sit in his lap, too,_ she thought.

"He has attachment issues. Thanks for keeping him company. Got a report for me?"

She leaned back in her chair, running her fingers through her hair and shaking it back. "Aye, Captain. The coordinates are already set for next month's rendezvous with Mercury, thanks to Mia, once we get close enough to cross it in its orbit. This gravitational slingshot should go smoother than Venus's."

"No medical emergencies this time."

"Definitely not!" Robyn agreed. "I'll keep you posted the closer we get."

"Good. Thank you."

They fell silent. And then, Robyn continued in her head, they would be two months from their destination. At some point, they would drift right past Hariel, and then pray for a miracle when they released the stellar bomb. Provided nothing happened to them on the way there. Or back.

Robyn snuck a glance at Ryo. His gaze was distant as he stared at the vid cameras, idly stroking White Blaze while the cat purred. She knew it weighed on him so much. The mission, Hariel. She didn't want to broach that subject at the moment, though. Because any time she thought of it, really picked through the landmines of worst case scenarios, she had terrible nightmares where it felt like all the air was already sucked out of the ship.

All of the precious air keeping them alive.

With fear, that old companion, tightening in her chest, Robyn asked, "Want to help me make dinner?"

Ryo roused himself from his own thoughts. When he smiled at her, something inside her eased. The tightness loosened. "You bet. Let's go raid the garden."

* * *

Chapter Title Song Reference: "The Wolves," by Ben Howard


	5. Secret Chord

_Author's note: Greetings, and Happy New Year! It has been quite a while, and I promise you will not have to wait another year for the next update. Quick note: I had made some time errors in previous chapters, so they have all been corrected. Please enjoy these last pleasant moments with our crew before things take a very different turn._

Chapter 4

The sun was a roiling, angry ball of heat and energy and fire. It expanded and receded like a living, breathing thing, railing against its fate, spitting arches of plasma in its rage. The cold emptiness of space around it was an indifferent spectator to its dying throes; the planets looked on from their distant orbits.

He observed, too, from a distance. Until it began to pull at him. A million grasping fingers dragging him in, beckoning him to share the same fate, or to spare it from its own. A blood sacrifice for survival. The sun's boiling surface became a wide, blinking eye that stared into his very being, hungry for a cure. _He_ was the cure.

Rowen was falling.

The speed of his descent was like an anvil in his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs. The hellish gaseous surface loomed closer until it filled his vision, until solar flares exploded all around him, the heat and radiation searing his flesh, singing his hair. He could feel the white hot, intense pain of his skin being peeled and burned away as he fell and fell into the dying core of the star.

The sun was swallowing him whole, and he couldn't even scream.

Rowen woke and sat up like a shot, nearly rapping his head on the ceiling of his bunk. He dragged air into his lungs in great gasps. He swore the blinding brightness of the sun in his nightmare left its impression on his vision, an eerie glow that imprinted itself on the darkness of his room.

He dragged a shaking hand through his sweaty hair and willed his heart to stop thundering. For long minutes, he did nothing but breathe deeply, wait for the trembling to stop, and let the air of the small room cool his heated skin.

There would be no sleeping after that. He considered sneaking into Robyn's room to just feel her body against his, but stopped himself. He was so sure she'd appreciate a sweaty, shaking physicist disrupting her sleep.

Rowen let out another deep breath and got up for a glass of water.

* * *

Ryo called the crew together for a meeting after breakfast. They gathered in the common area and he stood in front of the television, observing while they settled in. Cye and Mia took the two chairs; Kento leaned against the armrest of Mia's chair, occasionally leaning over to murmur in her ear and make her smile. Rae, Robyn, and Rowen sat on the longer couch. Robyn's red hair was pulled back and braided at the crown of her head, giving her a princess-esque look. She caught his gaze and smiled, her nose scrunching cutely, and he returned it. The blue-haired physicist noticed none of it, wearing an abnormally subdued expression. He looked exhausted.

The crew member they waited on finally entered. Sage came in and stood by Ryo, nodding at his captain. Ryo felt the contentment he always did whenever his whole crew was together: the rightness of it. But they were on edge today, and in the interest of making sure everyone was well taken care of and able to perform their duties, they needed to talk.

"I know everyone is feeling a little off because of the shutdown of communication," he began. "The next phase of our mission is beginning—the one we've been waiting and training for this entire time." He paused, and let all his confidence and belief in them ring in his deep voice. "I have absolute faith in each and every one of you, and I know we can and will deliver the payload successfully. We are four weeks out from receiving a gravity assist from Mercury, and within two months of arriving at our destination. Everyone has done a phenomenal job so far; not just at performing your duties, but at dealing with setbacks and surprises. If anything happens between now and delivering the payload, we will handle it with the same grace and skill as we have in the past. But I know it's stressful, when it matters this much. So I want to make sure everyone is checking in with Sage, and with me, if any problems or issues arise."

"I encourage all of you to see me at least once a week," Sage added. "More if you need to. Use the Earth Room: it's there to help relieve stress. Don't shrug off any feelings or thoughts that appear irrational, or try to bury it in work. Those unresolved issues merely manifest themselves in ways that will affect your work performance and your sleep." Sage's eyes drifted to Rowen, as did Ryo's.

Rowen was looking down at the floor instead of at them, his arms folded across his chest. His gaze was far away, and although Ryo knew he was listening, the lack of focus bothered him. He needed Rowen, of all of them, to hear what they were saying.

"Are there any questions and concerns we need to address at this moment?" Ryo asked.

Robyn raised her hand as if they were in class.

The captain's lips twitched. "Yes, Robyn."

"Can we take chicken off the menu?"

"Come _on_." Kento rose from his chair and walked toward the pilot threateningly, but Robyn only laughed at him.

"Any _serious_ questions?" Ryo amended, giving Robyn a look of mock exasperation. She mouthed _sorry_, and he shook his head to let her know he wasn't fooled.

There were no serious questions, and he let them go about their day. Ryo and Sage remained where they stood while everyone dispersed. Cye touched base with Ryo, letting him know he'd have an update report for him by the end of the week. The captain and the doctor watched Rowen leave without saying anything to anyone.

"You met with him earlier this week, didn't you?" Ryo asked.

Sage nodded. "His mood shifts as easily as the wind. Underneath even his more upbeat days, he harbors quite the fatalistic streak. He's acutely aware that the bomb's success is only theoretical, and his extensive knowledge concerning the dangers we could encounter works against him. He struggles with it more than he'd care to let on. Diverting his attention from it has been the best approach so far." Sage didn't mean to make the time he spent with Rowen sound so clinical. He genuinely enjoyed the physicist's company and the conversations they had, even when the man went off on existential or scientific tangents. But he knew Ryo wanted to hear that Rowen could continue to perform and wouldn't bring down other members of the crew, that everything was being done to ensure his mental health would stay in good shape. With someone like Rowen, Sage could only do so much. What worked best was being his friend. The blond almost added more, but noticed that Ryo was distracted by Robyn, who was talking animatedly to Cye near the doorway. A glimmer of a smile softened the stern look on the captain's face.

Sage wrestled with whether or not to say anything concerning what he'd gradually learned about their pilot, too, only because the captain had such a soft spot for her. Yet he needed to know; patient-therapist confidentiality did not always apply to the captain in a situation as delicate as theirs. They could afford very few secrets. "Robyn doesn't feel all that different," he commented quietly.

Ryo turned to him, his brow furrowing. Robyn was quite possibly the brightest soul on the ship; she buoyed everyone else with her humor and optimism. "How so?" Any suggestion that she hid something of that nature from everyone—from him—disturbed him. Then again…it made him wonder, sometimes, whether acting the way she did came at a costly price.

He'd had similar concerns when they were choosing the pilot for Inferno. He and Sage were brought on board early, and all potential candidates were funneled through them. Robyn, as capable as she was, had not been _the_ most capable and qualified pilot, but her temperament was exactly what they needed for such a long, stressful mission. Ryo worried, however, that when truly put to the test, Robyn's turbulent background would play a detrimental role in her ability to do her job. Growing up with an abusive father and aging out of the foster care system was not an ideal upbringing for a young girl and came with its own set of problems. He worried that the nature of their mission would be harmful for her and, as a result, harmful to the crew. He and Sage had long conversations about it, but it had been Sage who ultimately declared his faith in her ability. He'd cited Cye's presence as a positive effect on Robyn. Since Ryo trusted Sage's judgment implicitly, he agreed; but he still checked up with the doctor to see how Robyn was really doing. He still had a hard time matching up this vibrant young woman with the past written in her files. It was a credit to her that this was the case.

"Robyn doesn't expect to make it home."

Ryo's eyes widened as Sage's words hit him like a punch to the gut. "She told you that?" he demanded. He looked back to Robyn. She was smiling a little as Cye talked, one hand on her hip and the other fiddling with the collar of his shirt as she responded to whatever he said and laughed.

Sage shook his head. "She's rarely forthcoming with me. Cye would be the better individual to speak with in this case. Even Rowen or Regan."

"Does she ever indicate that in sessions?"

"This is what I've gathered from observing her, combined with my training. She hides her true feelings better than anyone on the ship. She's scared, and we are the only things standing between her and the certainty in the back of her mind that we are not making it back home."

Ryo said nothing as he watched Robyn and Cye eventually leave.

He made a mental note to talk with her soon.

* * *

**HASHIBA/PERSONAL LOG**

_Hypothetical._

_I am lauded on Earth for coming up with a solution to our "sun problem" that only works hypothetically._

_It's never actually been tested and proved effective. How could it? I am 95% certain that it will be powerful enough to destroy the Q Ball, but that remaining 5% eats at me. We didn't even know these super-symmetrical particles even existed until one wandered into the sun like an unwanted houseguest. _

_But even if this bomb works, it does nothing to erase the planetary crisis of diminished resources, unfit living conditions in the northern and southern parts of the world, and food shortages due to failed crops. If we make it home, having succeeded, who knows what shape we'll find the planet in? Certain areas have done all right, but the wars, border and civil, took their toll._

_They are so convinced we will magically fix everything. As if the sun operating normally can erase what we have done to each other to survive. The only silver lining is the absence of fissile material. Earth can't blow itself up with nuclear weapons anymore, since all of them were used in the bomb we're riding on._

_I think about that at night. If it just decided to implode early, as improbable as that is, and incinerate us all before we reached the sun. And Inferno wonders why I ignore her stupid reminders. Sage would be mortified if he knew how terrible my sleep patterns actually are. Unless Inferno, that traitor, tells him._

_It doesn't matter._

Rowen sat cross-legged on his bed with the open notebook in his lap. He'd hidden himself in a corner where another dresser built into the wall jutted out, hiding him from anyone who might just waltz into his quarters. He frowned down at his journal entry.

That gnawing ache was back, churning in his gut. A restlessness twitched in his legs, his arms, his brain. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run on this ship except for a treadmill. He was in the middle of outer space, and he felt so claustrophobic sometimes that he could scream.

Rowen let his head fall back against the hard surface of the wall encasing the bunk. He didn't know what point he was trying to make in these ridiculous journal entries. Was he trying to say he'd rather not even go back? Trying to make an end up here sound more palatable, easier to accept? _Preferable?_

He wasn't even necessarily conflicted about that. He had long since come to terms with dying to accomplish this mission. NASA made them all sign countless forms and waivers to cover the possibility: they all had living wills. Rowen knew the odds against their survival going in, and it was a price he was willing to pay. The brain that never shut off had already gone over every scenario that would prevent them from going home, and he'd like to think he accepted the inevitability of something going wrong with a modicum of grace.

What he could not accept, though, was personal failure.

It kept him awake five nights out of seven.

His bedroom door slid open. Rowen knew who it was before she came into view.

" Hey," Robyn greeted. Heedless of whether he actually wanted visitors or not, Robyn proceeded to invade his personal space and crawled onto the bed to sit next to him. He raised his knees and slid the journal away from her so she wouldn't read his depressing thoughts.

"Obsessing over our imminent demise?" Robyn asked lightly.

"Don't I always?" he joked, even as her uncanny comment hit too close to home. His lighthearted attempt must not have been convincing, because she scooted closer to rest her folded arms on his knee, propping her chin on her forearms.

"How now, brown cow?"

Rowen smiled. "Same old routine. Check the bomb dispatch equipment. Write down my feelings. Nap. Stew in my own mental juices."

"Ew."

"You know what I haven't added to my routine?" He tweaked her nose as if she was a little girl. "Playing voyeur during sparring sessions. You're such a perv with your cameras."

"I can't help it if they show up on my vid screens!" Robyn blushed a little, laughing. "You would, too, if it had been me and Rae or Mia."

He didn't deny it.

"Does Sage tell you everything?" Robyn asked.

"Are you kidding? Ryo told me."

She closed her eyes and hummed appreciatively. "He looked _good_."

"You should have offered to spar with him. You'd get closer to those sweaty captain muscles."

Robyn punched him lightly on the arm. He teased her all the time for her crush on Ryo. "Like I ever could."

"You don't know that."

"He's way out of my league." She said it so matter-of-factly that he frowned. "Super hot, smart captains with service medals do not give a second look to skinny redheads who spend their time flying planes and spaceships so they don't have to deal with their problems."

"That's…" Rowen was still frowning. "You're really shortchanging yourself here."

Robyn shrugged. "He thinks I'm funny and cute, like a little sister, and I'm okay with that. I'll just admire from afar, like always."

Her expression indicated the end of the conversation, so he carefully closed it—for now. He tried a different tactic and nudged her with his knees. "So like a voyeur."

"I am not!"

"You're right: you're just a lousy pilot."

Robyn scoffed; a vocal expression of disgust she had turned into an art since being in his presence. "You're the sorriest excuse for a physicist I have ever seen."

A witty comeback did not follow. It got stuck somewhere between Rowen's trachea and his back molars. It snuck in, then: the doubt. The fear.

That everything came down to him. His design, his theory. His fault if it failed.

God dammit.

Rowen could sense the awkwardness in her pause as she realized how he took it. Instead of trying to find something to smooth over the sudden pothole they both fell into, he just sighed and leaned back into his pillows, scrubbing at his face. Robyn followed, curling up next to him and hugging his torso in silent apology. For awhile they just laid there.

Robyn spoke first, her voice soft. "I know the answer you're looking for. The answer to everything. Why we're here, what it all means."

"Do you?"

"Yes. It's 42."

Rowen breathed out a laugh. He hugged her to him and kissed her forehead. She smiled up at him with a disarming sweetness.

He drew such comfort from her.

He knew she came in because she'd noticed how quiet he was earlier, but true to form, she didn't pry. And she wasn't prying now. He appreciated that about Robyn. She didn't try to pick away at him. It relieved him, in a strange way, that she held some of the same beliefs he did about the mission. There was no explanation or justification needed. They could just sit together, and not talk about it—the reality that they might die up here—and enjoy one another's company. If that meant late night visits to relieve the excruciating tension of their duties, then that's what happened; if it meant nothing more than the presence of a friend, then that's all they were. He held no illusions about what they were to each other and the need it fulfilled.

But he would sure as hell enjoy it while it lasted.

* * *

The sour mood continued to dog Rowen despite snuggling up to Robyn for an afternoon. It nipped at his heels for the next two days, made worse by the reoccurring nightmare that was starting to plague him on a more frequent basis. On day three of the Dead Zone, he took his anxious ass down to Sage's medic bay again, collapsing into a chair while the doctor filled out another log.

"Do you do anything else besides loiter in the observation room and fill out reports in here?" Rowen asked in a burst of agitation.

Sage peered at him over the rim of his reading glasses. "Yes. I occasionally treat my patients and then conquer them in kendo."

Rowen scowled. He didn't need the reminder from yesterday.

"Your bad mood has touched every part of this ship," Sage said calmly as he inputted something else into the computer. "I can feel it before you even enter a room. And if I can sense it, so can the others. It's putting them on edge."

The physicist blew out a breath and dropped his head back. Closed his eyes. "Sorry," he muttered.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"What does Dr. Date recommend?" Rowen asked mockingly.

"For you to stop hitting your foot against my desk."

The blue-haired man smirked as he tapped his foot against the metal desk once more before stopping.

Sage inspected him in a way that made Rowen want to squirm; like the man was looking at a frog he was about to dissect. "Two hours in the Earth Room," he said finally. "You haven't used it in over a month. Bring a book."

Wordlessly, Rowen left the med bay to grab a novel and, as an afterthought, a pillow to sit on. He was rather indifferent to the order—and it was an order, make no mistake—he just didn't think it would help. Whenever he visited Sage, he largely ignored the small room, no larger than a bedroom, tucked away behind the doctor's main office area. This time, he went in and shut the door behind him.

For right now, it was unimpressive. White tiled floor; plain glass on all sides; completely empty. He threw his pillow down and waited.

Sage's voice filtered through the comms device. "What simulation would you like?"

"Surprise me."

The silence somehow held the blond's exasperation, which made Rowen crack a smile. He sat down on the pillow and dared the Earth Room and the doctor to impress him.

Sage had been the one to develop it during the training for the mission, when the schematics for Inferno were being drafted. Both NASA and PASP thought it important that a physician also trained in mental health would be a needed addition to the second crew, as a precaution against one of their theories for Hariel's failure. Rowen didn't blame them; he wondered why they never considered it before. He also knew that this very room was the reason Sage was handpicked as the doctor for Inferno. He'd come up with the idea in his dissertation in medical school, as one of a number of proposals to secure the psychological health of astronauts for long-term missions. The space programs snatched him up, gave him the funds to develop it, and were so impressed that they signed him on to Inferno.

Needless to say, Sage was the pride and joy of the Date clan.

The light in the room suddenly dimmed. As if by magic, the tile underneath him appeared to become sand; the ceiling above the blue of a summer sky. The wall in front of him became the ocean. As the tide came in, so the ocean waves reached out to him across the floor, leaving strands of kelp when they retreated. He could hear the waves lapping at his feet, the lull of their rhythmic motion filling the air. Seagulls cried in the distance; a pelican swooped low across the water.

A smile unwillingly pulled at Rowen's mouth. He found himself, damn Sage, relaxing as he read with the noise of the ocean and the beach around him. Every time he came in here, he understood why Robyn affectionately dubbed it "The Room of Requirement."

"Better?" Sage asked through the comms.

His back relaxed against the wall. He breathed in, and could have sworn he smelled the briny air of the sea and felt the wind ripple through his hair. "No," he lied.

"Good."

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want more cut off?"

Cye smiled at the quiet amusement in Mia's voice. "Just half an inch off the ends, please. I rather like the way it's grown."

"It gives you quite the rugged, seafaring look," Mia agreed. "And I'm sure Isla will like it when she sees you again."

The biologist laughed as Mia circled him, clipped back portions of his now shoulder-length hair, and carefully began trimming off the ends. They'd set up a makeshift barber's chair near the bathrooms, dragging over one of the kitchen stools for Cye to lounge in while Mia cut his hair. She was the unofficial hair cutter for the entire crew—cosmetologists, after all, used angles, shapes, and math principles to determine the best haircut. Mia simply applied the same rules. She was as careful and thoughtful with their hair as she was with developing and tweaking the algorithms and formulas she fed to Inferno to navigate the ship's course.

"There really isn't anything going on there," he said.

"Yet," Mia sang quietly. "You may not notice it, but I've heard you log reports to her. Her tone completely changes when she talks to you. She's smitten."

Cye went to shake his head, and Mia stopped him with a gentle grasp of his chin. "Sorry." He didn't mind that the crew teased him a little for his more-frequent-than-needed conversations with a young woman he'd taken shine to in the first few weeks of their mission. He had seen Isla Lee in passing but never crossed paths with her pre-mission, until she became one of the communications operatives in mission control that logged and delivered their reports. Cye tended to send his reports late, and Isla had taken a night shift in part to process their reports when the mission control room was at its quietest. Truth be told, his late night conversations with Isla kept him tethered to Earth in the best way, and he acutely felt the absence of those talks since communication went down.

"I can't think about it like that, Mia," he said softly. "She's a sweet girl, and I enjoy talking with her. But a lot can change in three years. She has a life, and even if I wanted to… to see her in person when we get back, I can't expect her to wait another year and a half for me."

Mia hummed in what might have been an acknowledgement or disagreement. She stood behind Cye and pulled strands of his hair on either side of his face to check if the lengths were even, eyeballing it in the mirror. "You might be surprised. What started that, anyway? What did you guys talk about? I can't believe I've never asked."

"She requested a video call to get clarification on something, back in…oh, dear, the second or third month we were up here, I believe. She was always pleasant and cheerful before, but she looked sad and preoccupied during the call, so I asked why. Turns out she'd been dating someone in public affairs, and it had just ended terribly. It had factored in to her decision to take a night shift to avoid him. I ended up talking her through the aftermath of the breakup, and we just…never stopped talking."

"Good guy Cye."

"Always," he said dryly. It was a role he could never get out of. He was always the ear, the good friend, the understanding one, and it rarely went further than that. Partly because dating hadn't really come easy for him. He had been so focused on his studies and his burgeoning role in the space program that he never allowed himself to develop deep attachments outside of Robyn and the crew…even though he desperately wanted to. Hearing that the pretty, kind comms operative could harbor feelings for him both made his heart sing and sunk it like an anchor. And he wasn't blind to it, either; he'd had an inkling. But the timing was so…typical. Of course something would begin to develop now, when the person he cared about was three planets away from him.

At the very least, he wasn't suffering like some members of this crew. Having it right in front of you and yet just out of reach.

"Mia…" he started, then hesitated.

"I know how difficult a breakup with someone you work with can be," Mia said. "I'm sorry for her. I made that mistake myself."

"He was a coward." Old anger stirred in Cye's gut. He recalled the ill-fated relationship Mia had with an administrative in NASA. When things became stressful and grueling for the crew while they trained and prepared to leave, when Mia needed a cornerstone, he bailed instead of supporting her through it. Mia had handled the blow with unbelievable grace, although Cye knew she suffered in silence every time she had to interact with him. "It was a fault in his character, and he was not worthy of you. You deserve better than someone who runs when things get hard."

Mia was silent as she finished cutting his hair. And then to his surprise, she hugged him from behind. "I can't." Her voice was strained, raw. "I can't go through that again."

"He would never do that." Cye clasped her arm and rubbed it soothingly.

"I care for him too much to risk it."

"You're letting fear make decisions for you," he admonished. "Talk to him."

She rearranged and threw his own words back at him. "A lot can change in a year and a half."

"Of all the things to doubt up here, his feelings for you should not be one of them."

Mia squeezed her eyes shut, battling back the old pain and hurt, feeling it mix with longing and a kind of ache that liked to creep up on her in the wee hours of the night. "I know," she whispered.

Cye extracted himself from Mia's embrace to leave the chair, brushing some stray cut hairs off the collar of his shirt. He gave Mia another proper hug, and then smiled wryly as he said, "Look at the pair of us, not taking each other's advice."

Mia laughed. "Hair looks good, do you like it?"

He checked the mirror and ran his fingers through the strands. Mia admired his slightly wavy, bronze hair, and the biologist in general; longer hair looked good on him, and accentuated his lean, angular, handsome face. Oh, Cye, she'll wait for you, Mia thought with conviction. The girl would be crazy not to.

"My man, did you even let her cut your hair?"

Mia gasped with surprise and whirled around, a hand flying to her throat. "God, Kento, you scared the life out of me. That's the second time this week!"

"Sorry," the comms officer said, while not looking all that sorry. Mia's cheeks grew a little pink as she tried not to stare; he had clearly come in to head to the showers. Kento was shirtless, and only wearing low slung pants, with a towel draped over one shoulder. To say he was impressive was an understatement. The man was built, in the words of a few NASA employees who also came in contact with the second-in-command, like a brick shithouse. Her blush grew even as she thought it. To be wrapped up in those heavily muscled arms, her traitorous mind thought. She had to look away.

"It was a trim," Cye replied. "And you're about due yourself."

Kento rubbed a hand through his shorter dark hair. "Maybe. How are you holding up, Mia?"

"I'm fine," she replied. "Thank you." Her eyes darted back up to find him staring at her, almost assessing her to see if she was withholding the truth. Even if he thought so, he would still give her the space she needed until she was ready to talk. His patience was near infinite.

"We can pick up tai chi lessons again to keep you focused the closer we get to Mercury," Kento offered. "You tend to tense up way too much when we slingshot."

She gave him a small smile. "I would like that."

He nodded, and pulled the towel off his shoulder. "And if you need anything else, just let me know. I'm right here."

Mia didn't miss the subtext. She did miss, however, that Cye had left the room at some point, leaving them alone. She swallowed hard, unconsciously rubbing the back of her neck as she forced herself to maintain his steady gaze. "I know you are. I…" _I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. The way you make me feel scares me._

"I'll let you shower," she finished lamely. "See you later, Kento."

"Later, Mia."

She fled, feeling as cowardly as Cye accused her ex of being.

* * *

Robyn sat curled up in her pilot's chair and read. The computers around her hummed and chirped and she tuned it out from long exposure to their chatter. The book was one she'd read half a dozen times already, but she never grew tired of it. The day had been long and boring, everyone in their respective corners, performing their daily tasks. Busying themselves with the same routines that made the days blur together. She was pretty sure today was a Thursday, but it hardly felt like it mattered up here. They'd started segmenting the time up by destination a long time ago, to divide it all up into manageable chunks. Thus Robyn was only aware of time as they approached each next destination. Twenty-nine days out from Mercury. Sixty days from the sun.

A knock roused her from the story, and she looked up to find the captain entering the room. A grin split her face. "Hey!"

"Hi, Robyn. Can I bug you?"

"You can bug me anytime. Have a seat, Captain." Robyn patted the chair next to her, and Ryo took it.

"I'm kind of…making my rounds. And I want you to know this isn't me lecturing you or making you do something you don't want to do."

Robyn raised an eyebrow. "Uh-oh. Am I grounded?"

"No." Ryo took a deep breath and dove off the deep end. "It concerns me sometimes that you don't like to talk to Sage."

The redhead sighed. This old argument again. "It's nothing against him. I've just never felt comfortable opening up in therapy sessions, period. I prefer to talk to friends."

"He would be your friend, too, Robyn," he reminded her gently. "If you let him."

"I know, and he _is_ my friend, but he's also doing a job and I can't separate those two out. I just can't do it in that setting. But I still talk to people, Ryo. I'm not bottling anything up, I promise."

"Are you sure about that?"

Robyn regarded him suspiciously. "Why did that feel like a loaded question?"

Why are you more comfortable opening up to Rowen than to me? He wondered, then blanched at the thought. That wasn't fair. He was her captain, and she was dating Rowen. He suddenly wondered what he hoped to accomplish with this. Was he creating a problem where there wasn't one? She had just told him that opening up in that sort of setting was hard for her, and here he was making her do it. Now was not the time to force her to talk about her view of the mission. And maybe Sage was on to something by never pushing her for those exact reasons. Which was why he was the psychologist, and Ryo was not. The captain shook his head. "It's not. I didn't come here to make you uncomfortable, and I apologize."

"You didn't," she insisted. He looked so conflicted for a second that it worried her. "Really, it's fine. Are you okay?"

He patted her knee. "Everyone's healthy and Inferno's running smoothly. I'm more than okay."

A distinctly different sort of chirp from the computers caught their attention. Robyn and Ryo peered at the computer monitors.

"You had to say it," Robyn teased.

"Did I just jinx us?" he chuckled.

A blip flashed near the big, infrared view of the sun and surrounding space. Eyes narrowed, Robyn leaned forward to watch it, fiddling with the monitor to get a better view.

The computer chirped again and the blip moved a fraction. It took Robyn a minute to realize what she was looking at. When she did, she gasped. "Oh my gosh."

"What is it?"

"Something we need to show everyone. Guys!" She said into the comms device. "Want to see something cool? Come to the observation deck, as soon as you can."

Ten minutes later, the observation deck was invaded by all eight crew members, seven of them crammed on the long bench that faced the glass wall in front of the sun.

"Why are we here?" Cye asked.

"Robyn spotted something worth our undivided attention," Ryo answered. He was the only one standing, somehow able to still look commanding in jogging pants and a long-sleeved purple shirt. He looked incredibly pleased, even excited, and exchanged a smile with Robyn, who was practically bouncing in her seat. She'd left a space for him to her right, and Rowen sat to her left. The captain had not yet activated the window's screen to unveil the sun behind it, so the room was still just a plain, gray box without the star's dazzling glow.

"I think it's easy for us to forget our surroundings out here," he continued. "How exceptional it really is. So on that note…we give you Mercury."

It sounded unremarkable, but as soon as the screen lifted and the vast window lit up with the sun, it was anything but.

The room was awed into silence as they watched a small, black orb drift dreamily across the wide, round expanse of the fiery yellow star. A planet that, while the smallest in the solar system, was still a third of the size of Earth, and absolutely dwarfed by the star behind it. Mercury orbited across the sun in front of them leisurely, in what appeared to be a straight line, guided along its tight circle by the strings of the sun's gravitational pull. Forever fated to do so on its continuous loop, this small and nearest worshiper of the sun.

"Mercury in transit," Rowen breathed. He had seen both Mercury and Venus do it from telescopes on Earth, once for the latter and twice for the former. Even when they used Venus to slingshot closer to their destination, they'd still been too far from the sun to see the planet juxtaposed with the star. This was the first time—and probably the last time—he would ever see this so close.

Robyn could not articulate why witnessing the small planet transit in front of the sun moved her so; she only knew it filled her heart to bursting to watch it, and to also see the happy faces of the rest of the crew. Rowen flashed her a boyish grin before turning back to the sight.

Ryo slowly sank down next to her and Robyn, in her excitement, squeezed his arm and leaned against him for a moment. "Isn't it beautiful?"

He watched her then clasp her hands together and rest them on her chin, green eyes wide with childlike wonder as she watched the planet's trajectory. She was unabashedly in the moment, enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, and the light in her face was rivaled only by the light of the sun. "Breathtaking," he finally answered.

Mia and Regan left the bench to get a closer look. Mia stood off to the side, one hand over her mouth as she watched. Regan sat on the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs, interlocking her hands together as tightly as Mercury squeezed her heart. The mission, the pressure, the stress; it couldn't exist in a moment as beautiful as this. It was so elegantly and exquisitely orchestrated by the simple effects of gravity that it made her heart ache.

Kento slung his arm over Cye's shoulders as he asked, "Mercury was the god of travelers, wasn't he?" He thought it would activate Mia's love of mythology, and he thought correctly.

"Yes," she answered without looking away. "Travelers and transporters of goods."

"Well this group of misfits certainly fit that category," Cye quipped. The room laughed.

"As well as gamblers, liars, and thieves," Mia continued with a grin. "Mercury also carried a staff called the caduceus, entwined by two snakes to make a figure eight under a pair of wings. You've probably seen it used as a symbol of commerce."

"Eight, you don't say?" Rowen said. He nudged Sage's shoulder, who was sitting to his left. "Look at all this symbolism." The doctor, however, wasn't paying attention. His elbows were resting on his knees, hands steepled together, and he wasn't watching his beloved sun or Mercury. Rowen followed the blond man's gaze all the way to a spot on the floor, occupied by their lovely engineer. Regan was captivated by Mercury's transit. Soon, Robyn joined her, and the pair sat like children watching fireworks. Rowen exchanged a look with Kento around Sage, but said nothing.

They watched with the reverence of those witnessing spiritual phenomena in a church. When Mercury disappeared out of their view, everyone shook themselves out of the moment, but the feelings didn't yet dissipate.

"That was incredible," Cye admitted. "Robyn, I'm glad you caught that." A chorus of agreement and gratitude rippled through the room.

"Me, too!" She hugged herself where she still sat with Rae. "God, I wish we could replay it like a movie."

"Anything else we do this week is gonna pale in comparison," Kento remarked. "Any movie we watch: 'Sure, these special effects are cool, but remember that one time we saw a fucking planet orbit the sun right in front of our faces? Yeah, that happened.'"

"Who's on dinner duty?" Mia wondered.

"I am," Regan said. She rose, then extended her hand for Robyn and helped the redhead to her feet. "I'm heading there now."

"I'll help," Robyn offered.

"Thanks, babe."

"That was fun, kids," Rowen announced as they all began to stand to leave. "Now that we're back to our regularly scheduled program, we all know time it is."

"Oh my God, don't say it," Robyn warned.

A cheesy grin stretched across the physicist's face.

"No," Robyn pleaded.

"It's daylight savings time!" Rowen's grin turned shit eating when the entire room groaned.

"Oh, come _on_."

"You ruined a beautiful moment!"

"Booo!"

"That was the corniest shit I have ever heard."

"You're voted off the island, Hashiba."

"You _need_ me on this island."

"Permission to eject him from the airlock as soon as we're done with him, Captain?"

"Permission granted."

"I've been saving that all year, you're all lucky I'm only saying it _once_."

* * *

Another day of the mission was complete; a day closer to delivering the payload. Robyn ended it by watching Regan destroy a pair of shoes.

They both sat in the exercise room, well after dinner was finished and the room was empty. White Blaze was with them, stretched out on the floor next to the girls and getting the occasional stroke of affection from both.

When it came to exercise, they were all required to log at least two hours per day to ward off the effects of space travel and prevent bone and muscle loss. Robyn preferred running; Kento lifted weights; Sage did kendo; they all had their favorite physical activities, with some crossover into each other's realms. Regan's was ballet.

She had never danced professionally. She picked it up as a child and carried it through school and college, but never performed or pursued it beyond that, citing her total mediocrity at the art. It was a fun pastime that gave her exercise, and she'd taught Robyn a few of the moves that were particularly good for stretching after a run. The pair of pointe shoes she was currently breaking was donated by a ballet company that wanted to make a contribution to one of Inferno's crew; they even donated a barre for Regan to practice at, which was behind them under a mirrored wall.

It was good publicity for the company, after all.

Other companies jumped at similar chances. Almost all of Sage's kendo equipment was supplied for him by the All Japan Kendo Federation, outside of what his family's dojo gave him. Mia's alma mater created an extensive library of romance literature, downloaded it all onto a tablet, and presented it to her as a gift before launching. Robyn mentioned a few of her favorite authors _one time_ in an interview, and a week later boxes of books—every volume written by each author and more—showed up on her doorstep from Penguin Random House.

And Rowen. Lord. Endless computer games, a chess board made specifically for him by the World Chess Federation, he could name anything and someone would have clamored to give it to him. He didn't let that go to his head _at all_.

Needless to say, a lot of people around the world were invested in their success. Robyn thought the way they tried to show their gratitude was incredibly sweet.

She had already exercised earlier in the day, but knew Rae liked to get her ballet exercise in late, when the gym room was quiet and she could play music through the speakers and not disturb anyone. She loved to sit with her, talk, and watch Regan break in the shoes. It had a curiously calming effect on Robyn. She watched almost hypnotically as the engineer's long, elegant fingers secured the strips of fabric to the shoe and pulled the thread through, over and over. Regan only stopped when White Blaze got curious and sauntered over to sniff the satin strips, then bat at them. She laughed, kissed his head, and Robyn pulled him away and set the cat in her lap. For minutes, the only noise was the soft ripping and tearing as Regan remade the shoes as she liked them.

When White Blaze grew tired of the attention and left for another room, Robyn lifted her knees and rested her chin on them. "How are you doing?"

Regan looked up and gave her a sweet smile. "Better, thanks. Today was good. I think I'm just about over hitting the Dead Zone, tried to make peace with it. I've been writing to my brother to kind of keep him informed while we're down. It helps. How are you? Any bad dreams this week?"

She almost told her no, and then thought better of it. "One. I don't remember it that well, but it left me feeling weird. Nothing I couldn't shake off by breakfast, though. Hey, did Cye tell you that the artichokes came in? We can make frittatas!"

The brunette smiled down at her shoes, letting the obvious subject change go by uncommented on. Robyn would talk about it when she was ready. "We'll have to experiment with frittata making tomorrow, that sounds delicious." She slid on the pointe shoes and tied the ribbons around her ankles when she finished. "Want to do some stretches with me?"

"Sure."

The basic ballet positions made Robyn feel more graceful than she actually was, although they both laughed when she lost her balance and almost crashed into the brunette a few times. Rae made it look so easy, as if holding your leg at a position up near your head was a normal thing. She positioned Robyn's hands here, straightened her posture there, all while murmuring encouragement and watching the position of the redhead's feet.

"Your flexibility has really improved from the running and stretches you've done," Regan commented.

"It's nowhere near your "I can touch my head with my foot standing up" flexibility. Mia's made a lot more progress, too."

"We've got another sixteen months or so; you never know."

Robyn smiled a little tightly. There was a pause, and then Regan's hands came down lightly on Robyn's shoulders. She kneaded the muscles, making Robyn sigh, and said, "Roll your shoulders, and then your neck." Robyn did so, closing her eyes and breathing in and out. "How do you feel?"

"Tired."

"Bedtime for you." Regan kissed her temple affectionately. "I'm going to exercise and then do that myself after a shower. See you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Rae."

Robyn left Rae to her warm ups, passing the med bay as she did so. A light was still on, which made her smile a little as she headed for bed.

The lamp emitted a golden glow inside the med bay, throwing light over a desk and pitching the remainder of the area with its many rooms in darkness. One of the computer monitors had a link to the ship's security system, something the ship's doctor used to monitor behavior and check on the crew. They all had full access to the cameras set in all of the community rooms, but only he and Ryo accessed them on a routine basis.

He had no business doing this. It was unethical and disrespectful.

And yet.

"Inferno. Show me Regan."

"Yes, Sage."

The doctor propped his chin in his hand and watched the camera's feed loop into his computer. He found Regan moving fluidly through ballet positions, her hair up in a neat bun and off her slender neck. She looked peaceful as she exercised and went through the careful, poised movements to heartbreaking music; pliés, arabesques, rond de jambes. He found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he had the courage to walk down the hall and join her. To…

No.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Tomorrow, he thought, you will have tea with her and discuss the book she lent you, because she knew you'd like it, and you will continue to say nothing and treasure her company as your friend. Nothing more.

Sage watched her glide into an attitude position, with one leg gracefully extended at the waist and bent at the knee, an arm arched above her head and out to the side. Her chin was tilted up, almost defiantly, and she held the position until he knew her muscles would be trembling for the effort. Yet she held, because Regan was tenacious— and kind, and loyal, and his feelings violated the oaths he took as a doctor of both the body and the mind. He needed to stop.

"Inferno, close feed," he murmured.

"Yes, Sage."

He had no idea how long he continued to sit there, unwilling to go to bed yet, not ready to dive into another report to distract his mind. Too long, as it were, for a shadow passed the frosted glass of the window into the hall, and then a soft knock sounded at the door.

"Come in," he called.

The door slid open, and Regan appeared. She was still wearing her leotard and tights, and she was barefoot. "It's rather late, doctor," she said as she leaned against the doorframe. "Late for you, at any rate. Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, Regan, thank you."

She nodded, remained quiet for a moment, and then spoke again. "What you said earlier in the week, about speaking with you and not shrugging off stress…that road goes both ways, Sage. If you need to talk, any one of us would be happy to listen." She cleared her throat and looked down at the floor. "We have to look out for each other, and you shouldn't exclude yourself. Not that you consciously _are_, but…" Regan sighed at herself and shook her head. "I'm talking in circles. Let's start over. Please know you can talk to me, as a friend. If anything is bothering you."

Sage regarded her for a moment, as his heart slowly bled in his chest. "I appreciate your offer," he finally said. "More than you know." They smiled at one another, and then words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Truth be told, I am unable to sleep just yet. And I read the Kazuo Ishiguro novel you loaned me."

Her eyes lit up. "How far along were you before you figured it out?"

"Within the first few chapters."

She slumped against the doorway and sighed dramatically. His lips twitched in amusement. "Of course you did. I didn't figure it out until nearly halfway. I spent too much time asking broad picture questions and not enough time connecting the small details together. It broke my heart."

"It was troubling," he admitted. "But I found the revelation problematic. I have questions about the world in general. Would you be willing to spare some time to discuss it over tea?"

"Now?"

"If you're not tired."

Regan straightened and gave him a dazzling smile. "Yes, absolutely."

Sage rose, shut off the lamp, and followed her out into the hall. "Did you dance en pointe when you practiced?" She nodded. "How are your feet?"

"Sore, but manageable."

"We'll soak them in warm water while we're in the kitchen."

And sore as they were, she could have danced all the way there for this unexpected gift of time with him. "That sounds like heaven. I'll let you make the tea in the meantime, since mine is terrible."

"I never said it was terrible," he replied smoothly.

"You didn't have to, your face did the talking for you. I'm sorry, are you _laughing?_"

Their voices echoed faintly down the dimly lit hall as they walked, then cut off with the closing of the kitchen door. Not felt by the members of the crew, Inferno drifted ever onward in the direction of the sun.

* * *

Chapter Title Song Reference: "Hallelujah," by Jeff Buckley


End file.
